Foreword At the end of another year of vigilance and hard work, the Contrôleur général here submits its fifth annual report on the state of places of deprivation of liberty in France, along with the recommendations that it infers therefrom, which it addresses to the authorities. In order to understand these pages, it is necessary to rid oneself of three attitudes. The first of these is very familiar: “‘They’ are only getting what they deserve”, and, “‘They’ have caused suffering. Now, it’s ‘their’ turn to pay”. This is an attitude that obviously cannot apply to those who are deprived of their freedom without ever having committed an offence (those suffering from mental illness, certain cases of police custody etc.) and which, quite apart from the question of showing due respect for every human being’s right to dignity, backfires on those who hold it: if deprivation of freedom is accompanied with inhuman treatment, what kind of state can we expect beings who have endured it to be in when they are released? The second is a complaisant relativism: places of deprivation of freedom are admittedly not perfect in France, but the situation in other countries is far worse. Look at other continents’ overcrowded prisons. Look at the psychiatric treatment applied in certain countries. This official rejoicing overlooks two considerations. The first, which is often recalled – in these annual reports at least –, is that there is no way of quantifying suffering: who can assert that the burden endured by a sick person, beset by troubles and deprived of relations with their family and friends, is lighter than that supported by their counterparts in countries where healthcare is more “rustic”? The second is that fundamental rights, to the protection of which the Contrôleur général devotes its work, are indivisible by their very nature. There is no such thing as a petty infringement, a harmless slighting of, or humorous disregard for these rights. Imagine prison visiting rooms which took the form of shared halls, in which one had to shout in order to make oneself heard by one’s wife: these are conditions of infringement of the right to respect of one’s private and family life, which are no more or less serious than a scale of punishments in a young offenders’ institution, in which the length of a child’s telephone conversations with its parents were fixed according to its behaviour. Both cases involve disregard of rights. Though necessary, this observation is sufficient. The final attitude is the most crippling. It tends to object to systems of deprivation of liberty being called into question, on the grounds that those who serve in them make enormous efforts to make them work, that their daily life is exhausting and sometimes dangerous, and that they have already agreed to make a great many sacrifices in order to change them. “Look at all of the changes that have already been made; look how much trouble they go to”… All considerations which are perfectly true; but which, nevertheless, are not the question. Respect for fundamental rights is simple and firm. It does not boast of circulars and inter-ministerial committees. It has one key principle: effectiveness. In other words, it means an obligation to achieve results; not a best-efforts obligation. Without adopting this point of view, it is impossible to give close attention to the conditions under which fundamental rights are respected or disregarded: working conditions, the propensity of the police to respect the law, people’s attitudes etc. Moreover, in order to address these issues, the order of factors needs to be scrupulously respected. Desire for reform is too often sacrificed upon the altar of insult to officers, ignorance of the realities of their profession, and ground already covered. Moreover, as those who uphold that deprivation of liberty should take place in dens of wolves, rather than in accommodation for human beings, thereby act against their own interests, similarly those who defend an idea of security that flouts the dignity of persons are probably the first victims of their own convictions. 9