detailed comments state that: “The layout of the gendarmerie quarters does not make it possible for actions to be conducted out of all view. Persons in police custody are photographed outside, behind the premises of the department, in a space between these premises and the building housing the gendarmes’ families. When photographs are taken, persons placed in police custody are not within view as far as neighbours are concerned, but may be so for the families.” It is understood that no provision is planned in order to put this situation right, concerning which recommendations are made in the inspection report. With regard to the hygiene problems of persons in police custody, in one police station in the Parisian urban area, the inspectors noted the impossibility of taking a shower (this finding moreover applies to virtually all of the police stations visited by the teams of inspectors). In response to the inspection report, the Interior minister sent the Contrôleur Général a note signed by the head of local security for the Parisian urban area, stating that: “The Administration does not provide shower necessaries, indispensable for bathroom use for the personal washing of persons in police custody. Moreover, the taking of showers by persons in police custody would pose problems of security and availability of staff.” The examples quoted above bear witness to the fact that ministerial responses to inspection reports are in most cases limited to the passing on of responses provided by the direct managers of places of deprivation of liberty at their level, even when the latter mention administrative practices that it would be appropriate to abandon. Few ministerial responses, with the exception of the annual response drafted by the Interior ministry, set out any detailed overall reflection on the recommendations made in the inspection reports. It is true that it is more the role of the opinions and recommendations published in the Journal Officiel to prompt responses whose scope goes beyond any individual places of deprivation of liberty. Nevertheless, it has to be noted that, since its creation, the Contrôle Général has endeavoured to maintain overall coherence in the examination of each place of deprivation of liberty and in the recommendations resulting therefrom. As a result, the inspection reports could equally provide an opportunity for prompting overall change with regard to issues of constant concern, such as the protection of privacy and freedom of expression for persons deprived of liberty, to only mention two examples which constantly recur in the reports. It would appear that the inspections and findings indeed make it possible, in the best of cases, to remedy isolated difficulties (which is in itself very important for the persons deprived of liberty concerned) but fail to prompt far-reaching changes at the appropriate level (i.e. the central level of ministries). 2. Actions Taken in Recommendations Response to Two Emergency On 12th November 2012, the Contrôleur Général des Lieux de Privation de Liberté made emergency recommendations following the inspection of Baumettes prison in Marseille. The inspection, conducted by about twenty inspectors, took place between 8th and 9th October. On 13th November 2013, new emergency recommendations were made, this time concerning two closed young offenders’ institutions located at Hendaye and Pionsat, inspected between 23rd and 26th September and between 27th and 30th August respectively. 66