partly addresses the criticisms and concerns expressed in the CGLPL's report
dated 7 June 2016.
Presented somewhat rashly as an alternative to the dedicated units set up a few months
earlier – which would be scrapped – this plan actually strengthens such structures, but in a different
context. The Minister of Justice acknowledges that the issue of grouping together "needs looking
into" and that a major shift is called for as regards the previous measures.
"For the most sensitive profiles", some one hundred places in long-stay prisons or wings in
long-stay prisons are due to be turned into remand prison places in six wings for violent prisoners
(QDV).
190 solitary confinement places should be made available in remand prisons and sentencing
institutions. As mentioned previously, a specific management scheme is set to open in 27
institutions for prisoners who do not require "maximum supervision".
Unlike what the Ministry of Justice had considered in its response to the CGLPL's report
of June 2016, the situation for women and minors involved in an Islamist radicalisation process is
this time taken on board and special management structures should be set up.
The CGLPL will conduct new inspections with regard to these new structures and revised
management and assessment schemes.
5. Emergency recommendations dated 18 November 2016 on the
men's remand prison of the Fresnes prison complex (Val-deMarne)
Following an inspection tour carried out from 3 to 14 October 2016 of the men's remand prison
of the Fresnes prison complex, the Chief inspector of places of deprivation of liberty submitted
emergency recommendations concerning this institution to the Minister of Justice.
For it had found that the overcrowding, together with the disgraceful state of the facilities
and understaffing, did not enable the prisoners to be managed in a way that respected their
fundamental rights, and resulted in substandard housing conditions. In unsuitable facilities, poor
hygiene poses proven risks for the health of prisoners and warders alike: the institution is so infested
by rats and bugs that more than 280 cases of lesions caused by insect bites have been reported to
the health block and two serious cases of leptospirosis, a disease associated with the presence of
rats, have been reported to the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS). Although
the prison administration department, judicial authority, prefect and local authorities were all aware
of this situation, no corrective measures at the appropriate level had been taken.
The staff are overstretched, inexperienced and not sufficiently supervised, such that
respecting the fundamental rights of the prisoners is an impossible task because the staff simply do
not have the means, during their working hours, to assume all of their professional responsibilities.
The permanently tense atmosphere that reigns means that force, violence and practices that
violate the fundamental rights of the prisoners have become routine and acceptable, and continue
in some cases to be used despite express legal provisions or previous recommendations of the
CGLPL. Such is the case regarding an excessive and abusive practice of body searches at odds with
the legal provisions; unregulated use of so-called "waiting rooms" which borders on a
subdisciplinary measure; serious breaches of physician-patient confidentiality or aggressive,
degrading or humiliating words which amount to verbal violence, and which are more or less
systematic.
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