b) Contrary two young offenders’ institutions and psychiatry treatment units, prisons possess very few rooms for collective use and when they exist, they are often of dimensions which do not make it possible for large numbers of people to gather together. Nevertheless, it is important to recall that “the role of placement in individual cells does not constitute an obstacle to prisoners gathering together during the day for work, physical and sports activities, education, professional training and religious, cultural and leisure activities” 228, quite the contrary: the creation of premises for collective use, likely to constitute places for conviviality, makes it possible to offset the peace and quiet that each prisoner is moreover entitled to expect. In addition, prisoners should be able to gather together in common rooms, not only for exchanges but, more broadly, in order (once again) to learn to live in a community and put up with the imposed presence of third parties. For example, meals are not currently eaten in common in prisons, which are based upon the principle of service at the cell door and consumption inside the latter. However, there are a few notable exceptions in long-term detention centres, in which persons serving long sentences can have the benefit of a detention regime based upon autonomy within accommodation units, each of which are composed of about ten cells. In one institution inspected, each of the “wings” was open to a vast, living area, composed of a fully-equipped kitchen (cooker, electric hotplates, refrigerators, cupboards, sink, washing machine etc.) in which the production made in the central kitchen was deposited, the area also including a dining room and the lounge where prisoners could read, play cards, watch television etc. This type of arrangement should be extended to other institutions, in particular to those in which differentiated prison regimes have been put in place, which distinguish so-called trust sectors and floors. In the majority of institutions inspected, it emerged that in reality the consequences of the trust regime were minimal in prisoners’ lives, apart from different (later) times of closing of cells: the dimensions of the facilities are in general not in proportion to the number of occupants in the sector and the arrangements in reality consist of alterations to cells (often by means of knocking down an intermediate wall) into rooms devoted to various different purposes in which cooking equipment (sometimes without any table or chairs), household appliances for the cleaning of linen and Ping-Pong tables etc. are to be found, usually in very poor condition. In order to fulfil these demands, the architecture of penal institutions needs to make provision, in each wing of long-term detention centres, for a common relaxation and activity room, a “centre”, with a part equipped with multimedia and IT equipment and another arranged in order to enable cooking and washing of linen. 2.3.2 Premises Facilitating Exchanges with Professionals Premises reserved for professionals and actors within places of confinement: activity rooms and offices. a) Access to activities, culture and information in the first place requires the existence of a specially-designed premises for this purpose. The same rooms are too often called upon to be used for various different activities without distinction. For example, premises devoted to 228 Cf. article D. 95 of the Code of CriminalProcedure. 149