of placement in a punishment cell is automatically restricted by “the suspension of employment, professional training and education in which the prisoner participates”. From this mention of the solely suspensive nature of such placements it can therefore be affirmed that dismissal from employment cannot arise from the sole fact of placement in the punishment wing. 2.2.7.2 Forfeiture of Use of Appliances and Withholding of Correspondence A final area of confusion sometimes arises between implementation of article 24 of the Act of 12th April 2000 and disciplinary proceedings: this concerns the procedure to be followed in case of withholding of property. Several procedures for forfeiture of the use of appliances (computers, TV sets etc.) are provided for in particular by the regulations, according to circumstances. The circular from the prisons administration department of 13 th October 2009 concerning assess to IT facilities for persons in custody sets out the procedure according to which a first type of forfeiture may occur: “The director of the institution has the possibility of withdrawing previously granted authorisations to possess computers. The prisoners concerned shall be notified of such withdrawals of authorisation and of the reasons thereof after implementation of inter partes proceedings as provided for under article 24 of the Act of 12 th April 2000 concerning the rights of citizens in their relations with public administrations. For its part, paragraph 3 of article D.449-1 of the code of criminal procedure specifies the framework within which this withdrawal procedure may take place: “Any IT equipment belonging to the prisoner may, moreover, be withheld, only being returned to them at the time of their release, in the following cases: for reasons of order and security [and] in case of impossibility of accessing the IT data, due to a deliberate act on the part of the prisoner”. And paragraph 4 of article R.57-7-33 of the code of criminal procedure institutes the possibility of enforcing the withdrawal of IT equipment as a disciplinary sanction; in this case such withdrawal cannot continue for longer than one month. The circular from the prisons administration department of 9th June 2011223 specifies that “forfeiture of an appliance […] is a [disciplinary] sanction which may […] be pronounced independently of the circumstances in which the fault was committed”. Withdrawal of IT equipment by virtue of article 24 of the Act of 12 th April 2000 may therefore be found to apply, under strict conditions, in a permanent manner; on the contrary, disciplinary withdrawal can apply for a precisely limited period, though on a broader range of grounds. It is therefore incumbent upon the managements of penal institutions to choose between these two procedures, according to which is most appropriate to the situations encountered. However, several prisoners have brought unjustified use of the withdrawal procedure, resulting from the implementation of article 24 of the Act of 12th April 2000 in lieu and place of disciplinary proceedings, to the Contrôleur général’s attention, a circumstance which permanently deprived them of their IT equipment. For example, following the discovery of enlarged images of children’s bodies on the computer of one prisoner, which had been extracted from a DVD purchased in prison shops, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against them and they were sentenced to confinement. Fifteen days later, the person’s computer was confiscated, after an inter partes hearing, within the 223 Circular JUSK 1140024C. 134