very often experienced as such by persons deprived of liberty; certain decisions of assignment to
closed regimes may, in addition, resemble undeclared intra-disciplinary measures181.
The criteria selected for assignment to closed regimes vary from one institution to
another. In one institution of the DISP of Toulouse, the factors taken into account for initial
assignment to a special regime are the capacity to be autonomous and put up with collective life,
previous disciplinary history, psychological stability, criminal profile and the wishes of the person
concerned. In another institution of the DISP of Lyon, the draft rules and regulations mention
the fact that “any disciplinary incident and any disturbance of order on the floor can lead to being sent down
immediately to a closed floor”, despite the fact that the DAP note of 20 July 2009 specifies that “it goes
without saying that differentiation of regimes cannot in any case be used in response to behaviour likely to constitute
a disciplinary fault” and also that “the principle of automatic assignment to the controlled (the most restrictive)
regime on release from the punishment wing shall be prohibited”. Assignment to a “closed doors” regime
following a stay in the punishment wing has nonetheless been noted in several prisons. In one
prison of the DISP of Lille, the wing to which persons subject to the “closed” regime are
assigned is referred to by prisoners as being the “wing for punished prisoners”. Finally, certain
rules and regulations do not mention the conditions of assignment to the different regimes,
contrary to the aforementioned note which provides that prisoners shall “have the benefit of
information on the overall system of supervision implemented in the prison and the objectives and terms thereof”.
In the second place, it should be noted that this lack of precision of the assignment
criteria results, on the one hand, from great heterogeneity of practices and, on the other hand,
exclusion of persons without real means of remedy.
The variety of different applications of the provisions of article 89 of the Prisons Act can
equally be seen in the names of the various different regimes, their number and the objectives
attributed to them.
At the time of inspections, the inspectors noted that institutions which practice
differentiation of regimes apply it in a variable manner with regard to the number thereof
(between two and four different regimes, and sometimes more) as well as in their names. Thus,
the “open doors” regime may be designated as the open regime, traditional regime, ordinary
regime, responsibility regime or trust regime or even as the improved regime. The “closed doors”
regime, for its part, is in most cases called the closed or controlled regime but may also be
referred to as the observation regime or progressive regime as well as, as was noted in one
institution in the North of France, the normal regime. The intermediate stage, referred to in most
institutions as the semi-open regime, which in most cases involves the opening of cell doors on a
half-day basis, is also referred to as the common regime, improved regime or intermediate regime
as well as the trust regime. Other institutions compartmentalise prisoners according to their
activities or their fragility. This is the case for the “unoccupied” and “protected” regimes etc.
This terminology highlights the considerable disparity in the implementation of these
regimes and the relative confusion resulting therefrom between remand prisons, where the
closing of doors remains the rule, and penal institutions for convicted prisoners, for which article
717-2 nonetheless provides that prisoners in the latter are subject “to night-time solitary confinement
only, after having undergone a period of in-cell observation if necessary”.
Yet, and this is regrettable, the model rules and regulations for prisons, created by decree
no. 2013-368 of 30th April 2013, introduce this standardisation of limitation of movements in
prison, stressing that prisoners gain access to visiting room areas, to the health unit, to activity
areas, to showers, to the telephone and also to the exercise yard in accordance with fixed times or
181
On this point, see in particular 2.2.1 of section "Discipline and Sanctions in Places of Deprivation of Liberty" of the
Annual Report four 2012 of the Contrôleur Général, entitled "Organised Exclusion within “Differentiated Regimes”",
p. 125 (published by Dalloz).
118
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