The conditions in which the hearings of the liberty and custody judge take place are
heterogeneous. This must not be allowed to continue. While we should not impose too strict
formalities as regards the layout of the rooms at the expense of the principle of mobile
hearings, it appears necessary for the courts and the hospital supervisors to jointly identify
the best practices and make them known via national directives and, locally, via training
courses, awareness campaigns or sharing between healthcare professionals, judges and
lawyers.
2. In prison, the persistence and concentration of prison
overcrowding coincides dangerously with an insufficient
number of prison warders
Since 2012, the CGLPL, having visited almost all of the penal institutions2, has undertaken a series
of second visits. Most often, since the first visit, the vocation of the institution has remained
unchanged, as has its structure, and sometimes, even the same managers are still in place.
Therefore, the inspectors are capable of making comparisons and measuring the
consequences of their earlier recommendations. In numerous cases, the situations remained
unchanged and the commitments made after the first visits were either partially upheld, or not at
all. Sometimes, the building itself prevents any true progress, even when certain superficial
measures are implemented, such as repainting, for example. Sometimes, the situation had rather
worsened. Of course, there are also cases where the new visit of the CGLPL showed
improvements, often caused by changes in the prison administration department teams.
For these reasons, the CGLPL set up a procedure for following up on its recommendations
and is happy to note that, for its part, the prison administration department has done the same.
In general, the inspectors noted in several visits that there was an increase in
tensions and violence in prisons: while their number has increased only
slightly, they are much more violent in nature. Thus, in certain institutions, a
large portion of the prison population chose to distance themselves in various
ways to ensure their own safety. This point will be given special attention by
the CGLPL during the 2016 visits.
In addition, the older observations of the CGLPL and the related recommendations still
remain pertinent.
For example, as regards maintaining family bonds, which is essential for reintegration,
the Contrôleur général regrets that some penal institutions still do not have family living units, and
that when they do exist, they are not used very often due to red tape or due to the fact that
confidentiality in the visiting rooms is still not fully ensured due to poor soundproofing or due to
the continuous presence of warders.
As regards access to work, the CGLPL, deploring the fact that the Constitutional Council
declared the organisation of work for incarcerated persons to be compliant with our Constitution,
wishes for the law to clearly indicate the role of work in prison in terms of preparing the prisoner
for integration or re-integration, 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
2
Some institutions, such as the prisons of Orléans-Saran and Vendin-le-Vieil, have not yet been visited, due to the fact
that they have opened quite recently.
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