Company. Prison: The CGLPL condemns the "unacceptable return to prison overcrowding."

Although the failure has been documented for a while, it continues to frustrate Dominique Simonnot.

Company. Prison: The CGLPL condemns the "unacceptable return to prison overcrowding."

Although the failure has been documented for a while, it continues to frustrate Dominique Simonnot.

The Controller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL), in her annual activity report for 2021, published Thursday, denounces "return of prison undercrowding at its level before the crisis", which she considers "unacceptable". The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the French prison population to increase, and the density of French prisons fell below the threshold at 100% in spring 2020. French prisons increased from 103% overall density January 1, 2021 to 115% December 1 and 117% May 1, 2022.

Dominique Simonnot also noted that prison densities in remand centres (which did not fall below 110% at the heights of containment measures in spring 2020) rose from 119% and 132% on January 1 and July 1, 2021 to an almost 136% level in December (and 139% in May). The number of mattress on the floor fell to 431 in July 2020, but it was back to 1,592 last December.

"It was a missed opportunity to keep a reasonable prison population. The former journalist writes that 2021 saw occupancy rates returning to levels we had before the outbreak of the health crisis. This observation is supported by both the CGLPL letters and other visits to Toulouse-Seysses penitentiary centre.

The General Controller of Places of Deprivation Of Liberty always calls for the establishment a system to regulate prisons: "A simple system that sees one entering a cell and being compensated by the exit, under control, of another close to the end his sentence, as soon the prison is close enough to 100% occupancy", she explained, while also accepting the "attempts" made locally.

Grenoble is an example of this. An agreement between the public prosecutor, the prison integration, probation service, and the prison administration allows for the establishment a mechanism once the remand centre reaches 130% occupancy. . This threshold is considered "unambitious" as it "requires us to accept an already very worrying levelof overcrowding but at least we would have a real consideration by the entire penitentiary chain", Dominique Simonnot says. He regrets that this system does not seem to be able to achieve its goals (the Grenoble detention center had an occupancy rate of 148.3% as of January 1, 2022).

CGLPL is also concerned by the possibility of automatic sentence reductions being discontinued. The sentence enforcement judge will now be able to reduce sentences by up to six months (or two weeks) per year for those who have shown "sufficient evidence of good conduct or made serious reintegration efforts."

"If the convict can make the effort, it makes sense to award sentence reduction credits. Dominique Simonnot recalls that the CGLPL visits after visits and finds this not true because of the inhumane conditions in which many prisoners are held. Many detainees are still waiting for a job classification, registration to an activity, or an appointment with the psychologist to show their effort.