medical examinations. Interviews and medical consultations take place in the office belonging to officer in charge of investigations, the premises reserved for searches or in the cell. This situation is not acceptable. Medical consultations for persons placed in police custody should be carried out under confidential conditions enabling the compatibility of the police custody measure to be determined. Interviews with lawyers should take place in a room which is insulated with regard to sound, in order to guarantee the confidentiality of the comments exchanged, devoid of video surveillance and separation devices, which place the parties to the interview further apart and, if necessary, oblige them to raise their voices. In psychiatric hospitals, no specific place is provided for interviews between patients and their lawyers. In most courts, there is no office near to the jails enabling persons transferred from custody and brought before the courts, to have interviews with counsels and personality investigators. In old and cramped prisons, visiting rooms for lawyers are often premises shared with other actors – prison visitors and representatives of social bodies214. In addition, the location and arrangement (lack of sound insulation) of these premises do not always protect the confidentiality of the interviews held in them. In all places of deprivation of liberty in which they have occasion to assist persons staying therein, lawyers and doctors should be able to have separate premises at their disposal ensuring the confidentiality of interviews and consultations. Finally in application of article 42 of the Prisons Act, the documents mentioning the grounds for the prisoner’s committal should be compulsorily entrusted to the registry at the time of their arrival. Accordingly, as long as these provisions remain unchanged215, it is important for prisons to place premises at prisoners’ disposal, in which they can consult these documents under satisfactory conditions of confidentiality. 2. Architecture and Socialisation of Prisoners For convicted prisoners, custodial sentences should have a meaning: they need to reconcile the protection of society, punishment of the convicted prisoner and the interests of the victim with the need to prepare the prisoner's integration and rehabilitation in order to enable them to lead a responsible life and prevent the commission of new offences216. Moreover, rehabilitation of this kind is the sole vocation of certain types of penal institution: thus “open prisons and open wings within prisons, as well as reduced sentencing training prisons and wings for reduced sentences, involve a regime essentially oriented towards the social rehabilitation and preparation for release of convicted prisoners”217. Throughout the duration of placements in young offenders’ institutions (CEF), minors are subject to measures of surveillance and control making it possible to organise the provision of 214 Annual Report for 2010, Section 3, L’exercice des droits de la défense en prison ["The Exercise of Defence Rights in Prison"] (p.153): “Il est nécessaire de prévoir l’aménagement de locaux dédiés aux entretiens avec les avocats” [“The Need to Provide for the Organisation of Premises Dedicated to Interviews with Lawyers"]. 215 Opinion (Avis) of 13th June 2013, Journal Officiel of 11th July 2013 216 Article 1 of the preliminary part devoted to the "meaning of custodial sentences" of the Prisons Act no. 2009-1436 of 24th of November 2009. 217 Cf. article D. 72-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 139