Inmates in France are being deprived of basic rights such as safety, family visits and access to training in increasingly overcrowded jails, a report this week by prison watchdogs found.
The survey describes conditions marked by violence, lack of legal aid and barriers to education programmes that could help prisoners post-release.
Overcrowding has led to “a failure of all the public services that prisoners should be able to access”, said Claire Hédon, the French Defender of Rights, whose team compiled the survey.
“Overcrowding is causing an attack on the dignity of prisoners.”
The report includes a list of constitutional rights for inmates, written in accessible language and to be made available in prison libraries.
Current prison figures show a record 80,000 people held in French jails, with cells plagued by rodents and bedbugs. “There have never been so many people in prison,” the report states.
Hédon, appointed by President Emmanuel Macron in July 2020, criticised authorities for allowing prison conditions to deteriorate – echoing a 2013 report that warned of worsening standards.
Staffing shortages have worsened conditions, impacting prisoners’ access to health care, the survey said.
French prison population hits new record as overcrowding concerns grow
“We call on public authorities to take urgent and large-scale action,” the report adds. Hédon recommends increased use of alternative sentences, like community service, to ease the pressure on prisons.
The report also urges internal monitoring to ensure that prison staff treat inmates appropriately.
Last month, Dominique Simonnot, the general inspector of places of deprivation of liberty, denounced the situation in French prisons.
She said French prisoners had little chance of complaining about their plight.
In 2020, the European Court of Human Rights condemned the chronic overcrowding in French prisons. The criticism laid the groundwork for inmates to be able to sue authorities for providing poor facilities.
(with newswires)
