Opinion of 10th June 201020 concerning the protection of property of persons deprived of their liberty 1/ Every natural person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his or her possessions. This requirement of applicable law benefits persons deprived of their liberty just like anyone else. It therefore extends to the personal belongings that the detained persons may have with them on the day of their incarceration and during their imprisonment. The guarantee is all the more necessary for persons deprived of their liberty since they are separated from the majority of their possessions as a result of their detention and have only a few objects with them; moreover, the majority of these individuals, lacking significant resources, do not have the possibility to have a large number of belongings and have only those that are essential to them. But this guarantee is all the more easy to ensure since the detainees - with the exception of those serving out their sentence in a partial release regime - are subject to constant constraints and supervision by the administration which orders their remand in custody or enforcement of the sentence. 2/ Certainly, inmates do not enjoy unlimited use of these possessions. The administration can naturally regulate their use according to the requirements related to the compensation of the victims of the offense committed, the preparation for leaving incarceration and for safety reasons. As such, the Code of Criminal Procedure provides for a certain number of provisions regarding financial assets and valuables, and objects or property. Certain items may be retained by the individual being incarcerated; others must be handed over to the establishment's accounting department which stores them until the detainee is released. These include items on the list of prohibited objects, or those which must be managed by the administration (funds); and finally, others may be prohibited but not managed and are handed over to the family or to a third party "owing to their value, their importance or volume" (Article D. 337). 20 Published in the Journal Officiel de la République française of 2nd July 2010, text n°81. 41

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