The spirit of the text is to encourage the use of all penal sanctions, without giving priority to (or excluding) any of them, in order to ensure the greatest possible adaptation of punishments, not only to the nature of offences and the personalities of persons who commit them, but also to the requirements of rehabilitation and prevention of recidivism. This “plurality of objectives” makes it necessary to “diversify courses of penal action”. It also recalls that, according to article 132-24 of the Penal Code (Code pénal), which results from the Prison Act of 24th November 2009, in criminal cases the pronouncement of prison sentences without suspension can only be used as a last resort. In addition, reduced sentencing should be encouraged by State Prosecutor’s Offices, whether at the time of conviction or subsequently, when sentences are enforced. Members of the national legal service are asked to keep abreast of the levels of overcrowding by which prisons may be affected, in particular by ensuring that numerical data on the prison population is passed on them. As far as prison policy is concerned, the new Government has effectively broken away from the Act on Planning and Enforcement of Sentences of 27th March 201299 which, in line with the prison construction programmes launched in 1987 and on the basis of highly contestable projections of growth of the prison population, provided for the construction of 24,397 prison places by 2017, i.e., since certain institutions were closed and the programme in course (elaborated in 2002) was still being implemented, slightly more than 20,000 new places, thus bringing the total accommodation capacity of French prisons to 80,000 places. According to the report annexed to the Act, most of these places would be created by the construction of institutions that were very similar, at least in terms of the number of prisoners housed (650 on average), to those built since 1987 100. Five thousand eight hundred places were, however, to be reserved for institutions or wings referred to as being for “short sentences”, in which security arrangements were to be less Draconian. Although (at the date at which this report is written) the Government has not repealed the law, its intention not to consider itself bound by the Act on Planning, which does not in itself constitute a legal novelty, is likely to have a considerable impact. The Minister of Justice has indicated that the construction programme is to be limited to six thousand places, even specifying which institutions are to be replaced. The programme voted by the former Government has therefore been drastically cut by three quarters. This reduction is opportune at a time of constraint in State expenditure. It implicitly calls into question the calculations of growth of the prison population that accompanied the Act of 27th March. These calculations were for the most part based on levels of growth of the prison population in the course of the decade 2002-2011, which might be considered exceptionally high levels. It is clear that changes to criminal policy and prison policy go hand in hand. If the rate at which courts apply the sanction of imprisonment is reduced, the growth in the number of prison places loses its justification. This thinking is not dissimilar to the argument put forward in the Contrôleur général’s assessment of 22nd May 2012 concerning prison overcrowding, the content of which has been recalled in the first part of this section. In their current state, in particular because they are overcrowded, prisons cannot properly fulfil their role of rehabilitation and prevention of recidivism. This was emphasised by the Minister of Justice when she spoke of “prisons devoid of all meaning”, an expression which made a strong impression. 99 th No. 2012-409, Journal officiel of 28 March 2012. See also the ruling by the Constitutional Council on this text no. 2012-651 DC, which dismissed claims of unconstitutionality of the Act (based on the recourse to special public tender procedures for which the text makes provision). 100 With regard to which it should be recalled that the contrôle général takes a critical approach (cf. Report for 2010, p. 29 et seq.). 48