incompatible with respect for privacy. On the other hand, the installation of effective night lights should dispense staff from having to awaken the persons concerned. The inspectors have also observed the existence in most institutions of “emergency allocation protective clothing” aimed at persons considered to be suicidal, made up of a tearproof blanket and pyjamas. This equipment is intended for use for placements in emergency protection cells and sometimes at the time of placements in punishment cells. However, in a few rare cases, the inspectors ascertained failure to comply with the statutory conditions for use of this emergency allocation, in particular with regard to the duration thereof. Moreover, prison overcrowding undeniably acts as a break upon further improvement in manner in which the prevention of suicidal acts is taken into account, since it constitutes an obstacle to better knowledge of the persons imprisoned. In this context, the efforts made by the prisons administration and its partners have been unable to prevent the persistence of the high level of persons putting an end to their own lives within institutions which distinguishes the French prisons system110. In the face of this failure and the human tragedies that it represents, the prisons administration needs to ask itself some far-reaching questions. In the first place, with regard to the causes of suicide among prisoners. The reception procedure for new arrivals limits suicidal acts in the initial period of imprisonment measures, but their presence subsequently remains. Questions therefore remain with regard to the factors which lead to suicide, those attributable to the persons themselves, as well as those connected to the current state of prisons. It is presumable that prison overcrowding, the insecurity reigning within collective areas, the reduced presence of staff on the floors and in passageways (thus limiting communication as well as observation time), prisoners’ lack of activity and lack of means of expression are among the factors contributing to the emergence of such suffering that suicidal acts appear to be the only way out. The Contrôle Général recommends that in-depth questioning with regard to the causes of suicides in prison should be conducted by the prisons administration department with the cooperation of its other partners. 2.4 Use of means of Physical Restraint: Practices which need to change The inspectors noted that, in virtually all of the institutions inspected, persons removed from prison for medical consultations were systematically handcuffed and in most cases legcuffed. These measures are applied irrespective of their personality and dangerousness. Only very elderly and manifestly handicapped persons are exempted from this practice. This is confirmed by examination of the files on removals from prison for medical purposes which the inspectors systematically ensure are handed over to them. In this respect, the inspectors encountered the emblematic case of one captive who, within the framework of a removal from prison for a medical consultation, had been handcuffed and legcuffed for an ophthalmological examination on the grounds that they presented a “high” risk of escape and assault and a “medium” risk of committing other disturbances of public order. For all that, at the same time, it appeared that this person did not have any disciplinary history of assault on staff, that they were almost at the end of their sentence, that they were authorised to go to the wall-walkway under the surveillance of 110 However, it needs to be recalled that the suicide rate amongst the general population in France is also one of the highest in the European Union: 14.7 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010 as compared with 9.9 in Germany, 6.4 in United Kingdom and 5.8 in Spain (source: INSEE [the French national statistical institute]). 90