Overcrowded prisons: a remedy in view for prisoners held in conditions

What remedies do detainees have when they are incarcerated in undignified conditions?

According to the Minister of Justice, 849 of them sleep on a mattress on the ground. In October 2020, the Constitutional Council censured an article of the Code of Criminal Procedure which hampered the appeals of people placed in pre-trial detention in degrading conditions. He had demanded that a new law be passed before March 1, 2021. This decision followed a judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (CEDH), in January 2020, condemning France for overpopulation and dilapidated conditions of detention.

A solution to the problem?

A government text slow to materialize, Senator François-Noël Buffet (LR) took the initiative of a bill examined this Monday, March 8, 2021 in the Senate. It provides for how a detainee can appeal to the judicial judge when he considers he is undergoing conditions unworthy of detention, so that they can be brought to an end.

Then, it is only if the problem is not resolved by the Prison Administration, within the time limit set, that the judge can order the transfer of the detained person or his release if he is placed in pre-trial detention.

The solution proposed often risks being the transfer of the inmate to another establishment. However, this poses problems in terms of maintaining family links, reintegration if this detainee undergoes training where he was … , deplores Cécile Marcel, director of the International Organization of Prisons. Not to mention that this text does not put an end to prison overcrowding and the resulting conditions of detention. , she adds.

– .