absences are actually closely related to the assignments allocated for the week to the officers in question104: when officers are informed of assignments considered difficult, sicknesses occur. It would be inappropriate to pass judgment on these behaviours 105. However, on the other hand, questions should be raised about their occurrence and impact. The more absenteeism increases, the heavier the workload that falls to other officers, whose working conditions become still worse. In particular, officers theoretically on leave are “called back”. The number of additional hours also increases. A spiral may be created in which the deterioration of the situation creates new conditions liable to give rise to new “sicknesses”. Above all, professional solidarity, which is an essential – and traditional – part of the profession, is weakened between those compelled to relentless professional existences and those judged to be “skivers”. There are also issues to be raised with regard to the role of middle-ranking “graded” managerial prison staff, referred to as senior prison officers (premiers surveillants) and prison “majors” (majors pénitentiaires) i.e. high-ranking senior prison officers. In a profession in which the proportion of managerial staff is said to be much lower than amongst police officers 106, senior prison officers play an essential but ill-defined role. The same statements recur, emphasising that they are torn between different roles: at night and during the weekends, one of them is in charge of the team on duty, and is therefore the de facto director of the institution, while during the daytime on working days, their duties are much more limited. In addition, even at the latter times, their presence alongside prison officers, in order to supervise the latter in their duties, is becoming increasingly rare. They are to be seen when there are movements of large dimensions (beginning of and return from walks) and are scarcely present at other times, absorbed as they are by a wide range of tasks, often involving paperwork, which vary from one institution to another. In reality, their precise role, which is nonetheless central, remains somewhat uncertain. It would be highly useful to precisely redefine the role and, therefore, the obligations of these officers, all of whom have risen through the ranks. Here and there efforts at such definition have been undertaken, including in the professional organisations. It is to be desired that they should result in the clarification awaited by those concerned. Finally, there are also issues to be raised with regard to the half-thousand members of the senior managerial staff, directors of institutions and their deputies, who have heavy responsibilities, which they often perform in relative solitude. Over the last two years a certain number of them have chosen to give up the profession. This tendency has always existed. Moreover, the (now long-established) words of a member of the national executive management, which are still readily recalled in the profession, have it that those who leave “will come crawling back”. However, they are leaving in ever greater numbers and are not coming back, crawling or otherwise. These desertions have even become such a regular occurrence that they have not gone unnoticed by the press. Naturally, they may correspond to completely personal motives and it is difficult to make mass generalisations about individual decisions. The question should nonetheless be raised as to whether the sheer number of those giving up their posts today makes it permissible to view these departures as the sign of a shared difficulty and disarray on the part of managers, who in many cases chose their profession on the strength of personal conviction. 104 This issue concerns officers referred to as being “on rotation” (as opposed to those holding “fixed positions”) to whom specific jobs within institutions are assigned for relatively short periods, often for one week at a time. Prison officers present in the passageways of buildings are on rotation. 105 At least on the part of the contrôle général . The same does not apply to the prison administration. 106 However, in 2005, out of 19,036 officers, 2,212 were graded, i.e. a level of 11.6% (data taken from Laurence CAMBOUR-BESSIERES, “Les premiers surveillants – Une fonction de coherence” [“Senior Prison Officers – A Role in the Promotion of Consistency”], CIRAP, Dossiers thématiques, ENAP Agen, February 2006, 75p. 50