OPINIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE FRENCH CGLPL to this. But this argument is not relevant here, since this question has been on the table for many years. It is all the more unacceptable since the required decision concerns the daily existence, in its most basic form, of several hundred people. The Contrôleur général is aware that the State has embarked on a significant building programme in recent years, but feels it necessary to highlight the need for some rigorous planning, the elements of which need to remain as stable as possible, and which must reconcile the need for tight expense control and the absolute necessity of ensuring the basic minimum level of comfort for those placed in the hands of the justice system, and for those with responsibility for looking after them. 2/ At the time of the inspectors’ visit, the prison had 429  prisoners effectively on site for an institution with 315 places (occupation level of 136%). According to the information gathered on site, out of this population, forty-nine were employed as auxiliaries in the various departments of the institution and twenty-one in the workshops (fourteen men out of the 480  prisoners and seven women out of thirty-six). Thus less than 15% of the prison population had a paid “occupation”. One cannot consider as participating in prison work, as has done the Minister of Justice, the jobs of those occupying the open wing who, by definition, work outside the institution. Naturally it is appropriate to indicate that the question of work in prisons is one of the most difficult to resolve; that it is dependent on the state of the economy (the number of jobs available to prisoners has sharply diminished since the start of the economic crisis in 2008) and of the job market; that it is subject to the goodwill of companies; that one cannot compare ‘professional’ activity inside penal institutions with external work (partial release, external site working) the results of which are more positive. It is no less true that the current situation is distinctly disquieting. It is essential to rapidly create active mechanisms for seeking out job offers, for encouraging new working methods (electronic), for increasing the activities within the penal system and for rethinking the ways of securing external placements (with an appropriate status). The current low volume of work available not only has an effect on the revenue to be shared around (less work means more poverty in prisons), on the level of boredom and consequently on the tensions that exist within prisons, but it completely removes the possibility of 18