conducive to the organisation of an autonomous life, which requires internal and external areas providing a space for social life. Aggravating factor: the majority of these institutions are affected by prison overcrowding, which is not without impact upon the conditions of imprisonment in view of the fact that these prison areas quickly become congested, which limits the possibilities for autonomy still further. There are admittedly exceptions, after the model of one remand prison in the East of France, where prisoners leave their cells, every morning, in order to go to a “day area”, where they spend the day conversing, playing cards and watching television etc. These (limited) activities and the mode of access thereto (subject to strictly organised timeslots) can nevertheless hardly be considered factors of autonomy, especially as all prisoners are obliged to go to this “day area” and therefore do not have the right to remain in their cells if they so wish. However, depending on the institution and type of relations existing between warders and prisoners, the experience of imprisonment is not always the same. Here and there, the unavoidability of closeness due to lack of space gives rise to relations that take the difficulties of existence of some, and even the poor working conditions of others, into account, and lead to more flexible application of the rules, as a way of offsetting dilapidation and lack of privacy. Prisoners encountered in recent institutions frequently state that their social relations have considerably deteriorated as a result of leaving their previous institutions, despite the poor material conditions which they experienced in the latter. Conversely, certain old institutions – and institutions for convicted prisoners in particular, many of which were not initially intended to be prisons (former barracks or abbey etc.) – constitute examples of the opposite scenario, since they are of vast dimensions and therefore less limited in terms of space. Greater liberty of internal movement and the existence of open spaces are conducive to personal autonomy and sociability. This is the case with regard to areas used as exercise yards, which are also axes of communication for all movements within the institution, as noted in the 2013 Annual Report of the Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté: “it would […] be appropriate to think about changing over from a “yard approach” to a “park approach” (…). Within this approach, a central square serves as a link between the various different accommodation wings, like a small public garden whose social function is to be a special place of exchanges between prisoners, actors and staff, the latter organising surveillance by community policing”. In such a context, prisoners move about more freely between the accommodation sector and the exercise yard, and certain institutions usefully implement intermediate movement timeslots. own. This type of initiative encourages prisoners to respect the premises and make them their 1.1.1.2 Recent Institutions For the last twenty-five years, new prisons have been built according to a model that contrasts with the old institutions described above. Their theoretical capacity was considerably increased with dimensions of 400 to 600 places in the construction programmes of the end of the 20th century, or even 690 places in more recent programmes. In view of the chronic state of overcrowding, this means the actual presence of between 800 and 900 prisoners. The layout of these institutions gives rise to certain particularly restrictive common features, such as the 84