used… This factor, on top of lack of privacy in cells, is the cause of a manifest infringement of personal privacy and even represents a real infringement of dignity when the cell is occupied by several persons. Whatever the length of their stay, persons deprived of their liberty should have free access to bathroom facilities cut off from the rest of the room by partitions that go up to the ceiling. Access to a Sink or Shower The possibility of maintaining one’s bodily hygiene at a dignified level constitutes a right that needs to be taken into account in the design of confinement facilities, and police custody facilities in particular. The majority of secure facilities do not contain any shower or tap for access to water. In other places, the shower area is nothing more than a space for storage or clutter. At the time of inspections, the soldiers of the gendarmerie pointed out to the inspectors that they allow persons who want to wash access to the sink which they use in the duty room, but without any hygiene necessaries, that is to say with limited effectiveness. Yet, being unable to wash or even freshen up one’s face and comb one’s hair at the end of several hours of police custody, especially when one is immediately brought before a member of the National legal service, after which one may immediately appear before a court, is a manifest infringement upon dignity and can call the equality of parties in the trial into question. Although they are always equipped with a toilet and a water tap, prison cells are rarely equipped with a shower and sink, which means that the sink is used both for washing and for doing the washing up. The installation of a shower inside each cell in the most recently constructed prisons constitutes an undeniable improvement. However, this change currently only concerns a minority of institutions. Elsewhere, prisoners take their showers in collective rooms with, in the best of cases, minimal and inadequate partitions in terms of respect for privacy. Moreover, the ventilation systems in prison shower rooms are, in most cases, inadequate in view of the heavy fluxes of prisoners who passed through them every day, which contributes to their rapid deterioration. Arrangements which Protect Privacy and Dignity In certain health institutions, it was noted that although the rooms were equipped with a shower room the latter was devoid of any door, on the grounds of the necessity of preventing the patients from locking themselves in, and thus obstructing rapid action. The same absence of doors was noted in certain young offenders’ institutions (CEF). Access to the bathroom facilities being located at the entrance to the room, any person entering the latter thus has an immediate view of the inside. Similarly, it was noted in prisons that it was possible to partially view toilets lacking doors from the peephole. Generally speaking, in the majority of prisons, the bathroom facilities of cells in the punishment wing are directly and entirely exposed to the view of other people, from the peephole of the door or the security entrance. The same applies in the most recently constructed institutions, where a shower is installed inside each punishment cell, in general next to the entrance door. Arrangements of this kind, which do not protect the privacy of the user, should be prohibited. 136