Similarly, with regard to minors, although “female minor prisoners are accommodated in units provided for this purpose under the supervision of staff of their own sex”, “activities organised in specialised penal institutions for minors can cater for prisoners of both sexes”240. In practice, the reasons often put forward in order to justify this separation are connected with the risk that mixing of the sexes could represent for women captives and with the lack of female staff. It is nevertheless important for the prisons administration to comply with legal provisions: thus, totally strict separation of men’s and women’s wings in prisons is not justified except as far as accommodation is concerned. Institutions should arrange areas for common activities, in particular work and training, teaching and cultural activities. In psychiatric hospitals, mixing of the sexes has henceforth been brought into general use in full-time hospitalisation units, the assignment of persons of the opposite sex to the same room is alone ruled out. This practice, which arises from the will to provide patients with a relational environment in accordance with normal practices in society, is likely to reduce their social exclusion as a result of confinement. Nevertheless, it is a source of relational difficulties when not backed up in terms of the organisation of space when, in addition, sexual relations between patients are often prohibited by the rules and regulations or living rules of the units. Female patients sometimes also raise cases of rape and even report such offences to the prosecuting authorities. For all that, the solution to the possible problems inherent in mixing of the sexes in the units of psychiatric hospitals should not lie in the separation of women and men into separate wings or floors, but in leaving the possibility of controlling the locking of their rooms to the occupants. The architecture of places of confinement needs to include the mixing of sexes by making provision for arrangements which render the spaces functional and harmonious. Thus, in one CEF inspected, mixing of the sexes was not a part of the initial project, which was intended to cater for “twelve boys between 15 and 17 years of age”. The initial educational project was finally changed to enable the accommodation of girls, since theatre activities, which the CEF used as an educational aid, lent themselves well to the mixing of the sexes. At the educational level, technical solutions have been found enabling institutions to cater for both girls and boys. The CEF had twelve rooms: seven for the boys and five for the girls at the time of the inspection. The number of rooms respectively reserved to girls and boys could be varied according to the population catered for, since the passageway door separating the girls’ accommodation area from that of the boys was movable. Thinking about Ageing and Disablement The population of places of deprivation of liberty is much younger than the general population, with the exception of mental health institutions. The fact remains that non-negligible fluxes in terms of volume, and above all increasing over time (with a probable exception as far as the detention of illegal immigrants is concerned and in CEFs by their very construction), are made up of persons of more than 60 years of age and persons whose state of health requires their special needs to be taken into account in their accommodation. 240 Cf. article R. 57-9-10 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 155