teaching or religious worship229 need to be distinguished as such. Insofar as possible – taking
constraints of surface area in particular into account – it would be appropriate to differentiate
these areas according to the activity assigned to them.
In this regard, the design of multipurpose rooms should be ruled out; certain activities then
risk being carried out to the detriment of others, due to lack of availability. The organisation
of activities and movements is thereby affected.
In view of the considerable lengths of prisoners’ stays, premises need to be everywhere
planned for the organisation of collective and recreational activities. Areas are to be planned of
appropriate dimensions in relation to the public likely to be catered for in them, in particular in
the prison environment, in which the dimensions of cinemas/theatres often appear too small.
These premises also need to enable artistic creation (with sound insulation and a water tap if
necessary) and access to culture (with equipment enabling the showing of films for example).
Unlike prisons, hospitalisation units and young offenders’ institutions often do not have a
library. This is sometimes a deliberate choice: thus, in one CEF located in an urban area, premises
have been designed that correspond to the institutional project which, rather than organising
supervision within the institution, gives priority to young people going outside with a view to resocialisation. The absence of a library is always harmful, insofar as access to an outside media
library is always subject to the availability of staff in order to accompany persons when they are
authorised to go out, which is not always the case.
In all places of deprivation of liberty, libraries appear to provide the most appropriate
framework for being used as documentation rooms where everybody should be able to find
the information they require (of legal nature in particular, corresponding to the constraints
to which they are subject) and in which access to the Internet should be possible.
Conversely, in certain institutions visited by the inspectors, the library was also used as a
documentation and information centre (CDI) or a “multimedia resource centre”.
Similarly, libraries are conducive to the organisation of meetings between persons within
the framework of the right to collective expression, which needs to be everywhere asserted as a
necessity in collective life.
The inspectors’ visits also make it possible to ascertain that most penal
institutions have an external sports ground, of which the levels of use are
however far from meeting the demand for participation.
Absence of staff (or their assignment to other duties) and use of the sports ground for
purposes other than sport (as an exercise area for new arrivals for example) are the explanations
given. In the largest institutions (prisons with sections incorporating different kinds of prison
regime), the sports ground is located in an area strictly separated from the various different
accommodation wings. Access thereto is therefore not straightforward: on the one hand, it means
leaving one’s wing, and therefore involves the vagaries of internal movements; on the other hand,
the sports ground is not only shared by the various different wings (and even, within the same
wing, between different sectors and floors), but also, between persons of the same sector in case
of high levels of demand for the same activity (football for example). This results in low levels of
individual use of the sports ground. Moreover, prisoners often find themselves obliged to choose
between going for a walk or taking part in a sports session, both of them being scheduled at the
same time. Apart from the fact that this choice results in further increasing the time spent inside
the cell, it makes it necessary for the exercise yard to be shared between walkers and persons
playing sport, which is sometimes difficult.
229
Cf. Opinion of the CGLPL concerning access to religious worship in places of deprivation of liberty, 24th March
2011, published in the Journal Officiel on 17th April.
150
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