Recommendations of 24th December 20085 concerning the remand prison at Villefranche-sur-Saône The Villefranche-sur-Saône remand prison was visited by five inspectors from the Contrôle général des lieux de privation de liberté (CGLPL) from Tuesday 23rd to Thursday 25th September 2008. The findings from this visit gave rise to an initial report submitted to the director of the institution on 7th  October 2008. The director replied by letters dated 14th October and 4th November 2008. The full report of the visit was submitted for observations to both the Minister of Justice and the Minister for Health, Youth, Associations and Sport on 27th October 2008. The Minister of Health gave his response in a letter dated 11th  December 2008; and the Minister of Justice replied on 17th December 2008. These responses will be provided as appendices to the report. Following this procedure, and in accordance with the law n°2007-1545 of 30th October 2007, the Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté has decided to make the following recommendations public: 1/ The institution has put prisoners onto an ‘individualised detention programme’. At first sight this would appear to be a very positive initiative. It is in line with the objectives of the European Prison Rules (n°s. 103.2 and 103.4) and with the ‘sentence enforcement programme’ contained in the Prison Act (article  51), currently before Parliament. But as it appears on the ground, this ‘programme’ consists of selecting those prisoners who will be offered some form of development or progress, whilst leaving the remainder with no hope of improving their situation. The first group have a sort of ‘contract’ - sometimes quite real - but also sometimes really empty (no commitment on behalf of the prisoner, no activity offered by the staff); the second group has no project and no activities proposed. Such a ‘programme’ is illusory, and might equally well be achieved by separating the chosen few into separate wings or separate floors of the institution and leaving the rest abandoned, often irretrievably, for the full duration of their 5 10 Published in the Journal Officiel de la République française n°0004 of 6th January 2009, text n°80.