boxes to carry out this task. The next day, they were notified of a decision to place them under the closed regime as a punishment for their failure to comply with the cel l-clearing instruction. The two assistant helpers, aware that their placement under the closed regime would inevitably lead to dismissal from their employment, refused to submit to this change of assignment. Their refusal to comply was punished by the disciplinary committee by means of an eight-day punishment cell placement and dismissal from their assistant helper position. This situation raises two major issues – the use of differentiated regimes, on the one hand, and disciplinary dismissals from employment for faults that are unrelated to professional activity on the other. The Contrôleur général therefore took up this issue with the director of the prisons administration department who, in response to this second point, asserted that “a memorandum [would] soon be distributed to interregional directors in order to call their attention to the conditions for pronouncement of the disciplinary measure of dismissal from employment and to ask them, within the framework of their power of direction and control ove r subordinates within the organisational hierarchy, to withdraw sanctions that have been pronounced for faults that were not committed in the course of or during the employment in question”. Certain persons also informed the Contrôleur général of dismissals from employment on anecdotal grounds, not constituting disciplinary faults or inaptitude in their work: for example a floor assistant helper was dismissed for having shouted at a nurse from a passageway, supposedly thus damaging the necessary trust between the prison administration and assistants; another person was dismissed from their position in the workshops on the grounds that they had gone to a sports activity during a period of sick leave, in order to talk with fellow prisoners, this constituting, in the eyes of the prison management a double disciplinary fault: “the fact of not going to the workshop hindered the business due, in particular, to a drop in production harmful to the objectives of the companies employing prisoners, when his state of fitness was such that he was able to go to sport. Mr A. specifies that he went to sport in order to talk, a practice which disturbs the sports activity”. One might add that the DISP set this decision aside. Instances of misuse of article 24 of the Act of 12 th April 2000 have also been brought to the Contrôleur général’s attention. Certain persons indicated that the inter partes hearing concerning their dismissal from employment had been held two months after the single multidisciplinary committee had taken the disputed dismissal decision, and that this was done in order to “dress up” an unduly taken decision with a semblance of legality; others reported dismissal with neither a hearing in the presence of the parties involved nor any appearance before the disciplinary committee. The truthfulness of these allegations has been verified by the Contrôleur général. Finally, situations were referred to the Contrôleur général in which placement in the punishment wing was systematically used as grounds for dismissal from employment. One person in particular reported their experience in this respect: this person, after waiting for eleven months and making numerous requests for work, was granted employment in the workshops by the CPU, on the condition that they follow a training course beforehand. However, the day after this decision, they were called to appear before the disciplinary committee which, because of an incident having taken place two weeks earlier, revoked the deferment of an eight-day sanction. At the time of commencement of the training, the person concerned was therefore placed in the punishment wing, thus preventing them from attending. Nevertheless, no dismissal procedure was initiated, the director considering with regard to the person concerned that since “they were not present on the day of commencement of their training, the implementation of a dismissal procedure is not therefore rendered necessary by the need to take evidence”. However, the circular concerning discipline of 9th June 2011 provides that in the absence of specific arrangements (enforcement of sanctions in instalments, deferment or dispensation), the sanction 133