ensuring compliance with the corresponding duties”. Recommendations were made concerning
the following rights in particular: the right to the maintenance of family ties, the right to security,
the right to health, the right to dignity and to respect for privacy.
Although most of the rights selected by the COR were taken up, the Bill submitted to
Parliament a few weeks later nevertheless included many restrictions to these rights, which were
justified by security imperatives. In spite of an emergency procedure which shortened the
parliamentary debates and most probably prevented raising of awareness in society with regard to
the significance of prison sentences, the National Assembly and, above all, the Senate broadly
contributed to giving this text an ambitiousness, which it initially lacked.
The construction of the Prisons Act of 24th November 2009 takes up three
kinds of provisions:
-Part I: Provisions concerning the public prisons service and the condition
of prisoners.
This part comprises four chapters; the first is devoted to provisions
concerning the duties and organisation of the public prisons service, the
second to provisions concerning prison staff and the prison civil reserve,
the third to provisions concerning prisoners’ rights and duties, and the
fourth to various different provisions;
-Part II: Provisions concerning the passing of sentences, alternatives to
remand, reduced prison sentencing and imprisonment.
This part comprises two chapters. Enforcement of sentences and reduced
sentencing are the central issues. The importance of this part has led to the
Prisons Act sometimes being referred to as the “Sentence Enforcement
Act”.
-Part III: Final Provisions.
Article 100 of this part – the final article of the Act – mentions exclusion
from the effect of the principle of placement in individual cells in remand
prisons, applicable for a maximum period of five years as from the date of
publication of the Act.
In 2012 the Parliament made an initial assessment of the Prisons Act. The National
Assembly published a report on 1st February 2012101 and the Senate on 4th July of the same year102.
The overall conclusions of these assessments were as follows:
The application of the Prisons Act called for the publication of twenty-one regulations;
one of the latter, devoted to the model rules and regulations of each category of penal institution,
still remained to be taken at the time of drafting of the National Assembly’s report. Decree (décret)
no. 2013-368 of 30th April 2013 filled this gap.
The rapporteurs of the work of the Senate pointed out that the putting in place of
independent assessment of rates of recidivism with regard to each prison for definitively
convicted prisoners had not yet been initiated; since the publication of their report it has still not
been initiated.
101
French National Assembly, report no. 4262 submitted in application of article 145-7, paragraph 1 of the
Regulations (Règlement), on the implementation of the Prisons Act no. 2009-1436 of 24th November2009, by Messrs
Jean-Paul Garraud and Serge Blisko, deputies. This report limits itself to listing the implementing texts necessary for
application of the Act.
102
French Senate (2011-2012) “Loi pénitentiaire : de la loi à la réalité carcérale”, rapport d’information no. 629 of 4th
July 2012 by Mr Jean-René Lecerf and Mrs Nicole Borvo Cohen-Seat, senators.
86
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