Telephone Maintaining family bonds Telephone Computing Penal institution Work Activities Education Alternatives to incarceration Prison overcrowding Prison regulation 138 It is recommended to install telephones in places that prevent access to the telephone being dependent solely on detainees, which would lead to all sorts of pressure, and to maintain the confidentiality of the conversations. Recommendations were also made to remove certain procedural obstacles in the procedure of designating the persons that can be contacted by telephone, of arranging call times, especially for the benefit of persons from overseas territories, and of authorising international communications pursuant to the same conditions as national communications. Access to the telephone must be provided for spouses or partners, both of whom are incarcerated, which is not the case today (e.g. by authorising a call to a telephone booth located in a detention facility); the detainee should be allowed to contact his/her kin, even when the detainee himself/herself or the family member is hospitalised. A better guarantee of the detainees’ freedom of communication without any limits other than those imposed by security, public order, the future of the detainees and the rights of their victims, is necessary The CGLPL recommends that, to help in reinsertion, the rules of accessing computers, concerning the acquisition of hardware, storage capacities, access to the Internet and an electronic messaging service must be made more flexible and harmonised, in compliance with security requirements. The CGLPL wishes for the law to clearly indicate the role of work in prison in terms of preparing the prisoner for insertion or reinsertion, to define broader rules concerning labour relations, especially concerning the breaking of these relations and remuneration, and to determine the general framework of the rules of security and protection of the worker in prisons. However, the legal regime of work in prison is not the only obstacle: the fact that very few establishments offer work remains a subject of concern. The offer of education remains insufficient with respect to the objectives of reinsertion, which must be the focal point of the prison organisation. The only way to reduce prison overcrowding is by certain prison practices, especially by seeking the development of alternatives to incarceration such as electronic tagging, work release or day parole, as well as by re-examining the suspension of sentences on medical grounds or even by the terms of judicial supervision and public service, or by inventing other forms of penal sanctions. It would also be appropriate to reflect on the execution of short or very short sentences, or on very old sentences. Setting up a prison regulation mechanism appears to be necessary today to guarantee the effectiveness of reducing overcrowding and the damage to the objective of individual cells. It therefore involves delaying incarceration when the accommodation capacity of a remand prison is full, and freeing certain detainees at the end of their sentence, by offering them aid, i.e. a project and oversight suited to their situation. 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 1