the narrowness or broadness of its limits. Its completeness depends upon conditions which are less easily measurable”. In the same work, the philosopher, who views initiative and liberty as “vital needs of the soul”, defines rules as needing to be rational enough for the person to whom they apply to be able “on the one hand, to understand their corresponding usefulness and, on the other hand, the practical needs that impose them”. According to the terms of the Petit Robert dictionary, autonomy is the right, for an individual, to freely determine the rules to which they submit. The concept of autonomy implies the notions of right, choice, capacity to act and emancipation, and can thus be defined as the ability to live by oneself, in accordance with one’s own motivation and ethics. This concept may seem a priori to contradict the idea of imprisonment. However, it should be recalled that deprivation of liberty consists of deprivation of the right to come and go, and should not deny the person all capacity for initiative. Captivity, which is a temporary condition, too often leads to infantilisation and the destruction of a person’s sense of responsibility, whereas this time should be put to advantage in order to restore the possibility of directing one’s own life and acting on one’s own initiative, while complying with the rules decreed by society. Deprivation of liberty and autonomy should not in any way be considered incompatible; for this reason, this chapter will specifically examine the ways in which personal autonomy needs to be protected insofar as it is a corollary of respect for fundamental rights. In the course of their visits, the inspectors ascertained a large number of restrictions placed upon liberty, of which the reasons and meaning were not always clearly apparent. For this reason they wanted to examine the living conditions of persons staying in places of deprivation of liberty, of whatever nature, and analyse them with regard to the margin of autonomy that is left to them, this notion here being understood to mean the possibility of choice, action and practical exercise of a liberty. Respect for autonomy will also be examined from the point of view of the fundamental rights which it is the CGLPL’s duty to ensure are respected, and which the European Court of Human Rights has regularly confirmed via the notion of personal autonomy. 1. Autonomy in Prisons The Act of 5th June 1875, concerning the departmental prisons regime, set out the principle of placement in individual cells for the first time in the history of French prisons. Article 1 thereof decrees that: “Defendants and persons charged and awaiting trial shall in future be individually separated day and night”. Article 2 extends these provisions to “convicted prisoners sentenced to imprisonment for a year and a day or less” and article 3 provides that convicted prisoners sentenced to imprisonment of longer than one year shall be entitled to this possibility “at their request”. Prison was considered to be a “school of crime” and the objective was to limit contact between prisoners as much as possible, in order to protect them from the harmful effects of bad company. Prison life was therefore organised according to rules of solitary confinement, solitude and silence, which prohibited all sociability between persons. The meaning of the sentence lays in punishing persons who had sinned; the penal system leading to penitence through work and 82