2.6 A strange relation to the norm Article 11 of the Prisons Act provides for the creation of a code of professional ethics of the public prisons services, established by decree of the Council of State, fixing the rules that are to be complied with and the taking of an oath. This Code is intended in particular to ensure a respectful approach to dealing with persons deprived of liberty. The creation of a code of professional ethics for the public prison service was established by the decree of 30th December 2010. It recommends that the code be handed over to every official and displayed in penal institutions in such a manner that it is also brought to the attention of persons placed in custody. At the time of their visits, the inspectors noted that the code of professional ethics was displayed in the majority of institutions inspected. However, it is rarely displayed in detention areas. Moreover, although the whole of the staff having graduated from the School of the French National Prisons Administration (Ecole nationale de l’administration pénitentiaire) since the decree have taken the oath, few prison officers already in service have done so. At the time of inspections, it did not appear to the inspectors that staff had assimilated the code of professional ethics. To take one example: the use of the informal “tu” form when addressing prisoners remains widespread, whereas it is prohibited in the code. This may not be a sign of disrespect, but rather the manifestation of a desire for familiarity in order to create relations conducive to defusing current or possible situations of conflict or more simply an approach that is part of the history of the institution. The Contrôleur Général recommends that the code of professional ethics be displayed in places of detention and the formal “vous” form be used by prison officers in addressing prisoners, as provided for under the code of professional ethics. 3. Access to information: How to overcome fears? In prison, the issue of access to law and clarity thereof is crucial. Producing texts is futile if prisoners are not aware of them and cannot take advantage of them in their daily lives114. 3.1 In Search of Rules and Regulations Drawing upon the Conclusions of the Report of the Committee Chaired by Mr Canivet, article 86 of the Prisons Act calls for the drawing up of model rules and regulations for each of the categories of prisons, in particular in order to standardise the rules within institutions of the same legal nature. The decree of the Council of State which determines the contents thereof was issued at 30th of April 2013, that is to say more than four years after the Act was voted. The time required for the drafting of this norm provides a good illustration of the importance that was granted to this standardisation of the rules of prison life. From checks in prisons, at the time of visits by the inspectors, it emerges that in many cases the rules and regulations are in the course of being updated or awaiting validation at a higher level.115 Apart from being updated, rules and regulations are nonetheless without value if they are not distributed to the prison population. At the present time, whether updated or not, the 114 See Section 9 below, the figure of the “litigious person”. The initial responses, which were often made to the issuing of the decree of the Council of State served to mask the management teams’ difficulties in designing a tool which, by its very nature, was not envisaged as an asset but as an excessively restrictive norm. 115 92