assignment decision to the long-term detention centre of Bédenac “on the following grounds: this assignment will enable rapid departure to long-term detention centre”. The inspectors have examined numerous situations in which transfer to a penal institution for convicted prisoners constituted a major violation of the right to respect for the private and family life of the persons concerned and for which an inter partes procedure was not implemented.201 It should be noted that the waiting times for assignment are lengthened still further when an initial assignment requires prior admission to the National Assessment Centre (Centre national d’évaluation / CNE)202. By way of example, one person sentenced in June 2011, who had the benefit of an assignment decision to the CNE in March 2012, was transferred there in January 2013. Generally, persons are transferred to the CNE two weeks before the start of the session. Then, at the end of the six-week session, they are held in the institution pending their return to their initial place of assignment. The inspectors ascertained that, priority being given to persons leaving the CNE, the average waiting time between the end of the session and effective assignment to a penal institution for convicted prisoners is less than three months. However, at the time of the inspection of one of the CNEs, four convicted prisoners assigned to a long-stay prison referred to as being “overloaded” had been waiting for their transfer for eight or nine months, and three others for eleven months. The situation of persons accommodated in institutions in French overseas departments and territories raises serious difficulties when their initial assignment is dependent upon a period in a CNE. At the time of their inspections in French overseas departments and territories, the inspectors ascertained that a considerable number of convicted prisoners refused to go to the CNE due to the major disruption that would be caused by a departure to metropolitan France. In one of the institutions inspected, it was pointed out that these persons, who could not legally be assigned to a wing of a long-term detention centre, would therefore remain in the remand prison wing, even when they had been sentenced to life imprisonment. 9. Conclusion The Prisons Act, which initially gave rise to controversies, has been applied in an uneven and hesitant manner on certain major points concerning protection of the fundamental rights of prisoners and their daily life in prison. More than four years after it came into force, this bears witness to the fact that voting a law is not enough to fundamentally transform prison life and change common practices in prisons. Its implementation suffered from the late appearance of the statutory implementing texts, which were postponed – for almost four years in certain cases – and still more from a political and social context which led to heavy prison overcrowding. The choices made weighed upon its application. Refusal to call upon the provisions of ordinary law, as for example with regard to the question of employment or assistance for extreme poverty, sanctioned the idea that the prison world remained a special case, outside of society. The limitations made to its principles on numerous occasions, for reasons of maintenance of proper order and security in penal institutions, weakened their force. The most significant example is that of article 41 (image rights), with regard to which the prisons administration’s 201 The circular of 21st of February 2012 concerning the orientation of prisoners in penal institutions provides that: "when the decision due to be taken by the authority concerned is likely to infringe the prisoner's fundamental rights and freedoms, the inter partes procedure shall be implemented". 202 Cases of compulsory admission are fixed by article 717-1 A of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 125