Le Covid-19 dans les prisons françaises

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Mathilde FOUBERT A1 (2350 words) Covid-19 in French prisons

Since March 2020, the Covid-19 health crisis has been our daily life. Between confinement, masks, curfews and social distancing, there has been no shortage of health protection measures. Schools, offices, restaurants, sports halls, but also places of incarceration, have undergone numerous changes and improvements. For the so-called "free" population, the confinement measures were felt as imprisonment for some and an infringement of their individual freedoms. Today, we are going to ask ourselves how the people on the other side of the bars, those who are already deprived of liberties and incarcerated for misconduct, have experienced this crisis. More specifically, we are going to analyse the anti-COVID-19 measures put in place in France, compare them with those installed in the United States and the United Kingdom, so that we can finally, despite our lack of experience, attempt to criticise them.

Let us come back, first of all, to a short history of health in prisons, mostly French. The notion of care for prisoners comes very late in the history of detention. In fact, when at the end of the 18th century the infamous penalties were abolished (branding), access to health care was still not considered. This is rooted in the very idea of incarceration and prison. Seen as a real punishment and prisoners no longer really belonging to society, a dehumanisation of the latter is effective. A paradox that we can thus note is the idea of the "care" and "healing" function of prison, of the evils and vices of the convicted. It was in 1791 that this function was clearly enacted when the penal code was drafted. In the 20th century, this goal has not changed and Clémenceau describes the prison as a "House of healing". Despite the lack of access to prisoner care, epidemic warnings have been issued by some philanthropists such as John Howard, who specialises in the subject of incarceration. He denounces and warns about the overcrowding of prisons and the totally insufficient hygiene conditions. We will discuss this subject again in the second part of our study. These warnings were not taken into account until much later, after the decree of 9 December 1944, which institutionalized the notion of care for prisoners. The Amor reform of 1945 established the principle according to which "the main purpose of a custodial sentence is the amendment and social rehabilitation of the convicted person". One of the main objectives of this reform is to humanise the sentence of prisoners, which was not the case before. To conclude on this small first part, the idea of caring for prisoners amounts to establishing a real definition of the notion of sentence, detention, and incarceration. A consideration of prisoners in society is another issue at stake here.

It seemed important to me to come back to this subject because it is one of the questions that are still topical about the place and rights of the prisoner vis-à-vis the rest of the population. To deal with an epidemic such as the Covid-19, this type of issue is very important in its management and in the management of the health measures put in place.

Let us go back to the heart of our subject and analyse the management of the coronavirus crisis in French prisons.

First, the figures for the epidemic situation in prisons are as follows. In June 2020, there were 3 clusters, in October of the same year, 33 were announced. A meteoric increase in line with the increase in the number of cases each week. In fact, in the week of 03 November, 182 new cases were confirmed among prisoners, 11 cases more than those diagnosed the previous week. Among prison guards and staff, 451 were identified that same week, 431 last week compared to 287 two weeks before. According to the administration, this increase is related to the increased frequency of testing. As in the outside world, screenings are becoming more frequent, which allows a more correct but also higher assessment of the number of cases.

Before talking about the measures taken to deal with overcrowding in prisons, which is one of our main challenges, we will look at the different measures put in place and how they have evolved throughout the epidemic. Since March, the transfer of linen by prisoners' families was forbidden, in October it was reiterated under conditions. In particular, the linen must be placed in "isolation" 24 hours after being deposited and disinfected by the health teams. In the same way, walks and leaving the cells are no longer as restricted as during the first wave (only 1 hour's leave is allowed), however, as outside the prisons, masks have become compulsory. The visiting rooms, which had been banned a few months earlier, have been reinstated but the family life units have not been reorganised to be reopened. "Family lounges are premises preserving confidentiality and privacy, where detainees can receive relatives. Visits there are longer than in ordinary visiting rooms: half a day of 6 hours maximum (with a break in between), necessarily during the day" (Article R.57-8-13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). Sport and prison work had also been cancelled during the first period. These two activities were recently resumed in October, including penitentiary work for the manufacture of washable masks for the population. Still around activities, religious ones in this case, religious meetings have been banned since March, but each prisoner can ask to see a chaplain individually. Similarly, a telephone credit of 30 euros is offered to each prisoner to keep in touch with the families.

As we can imagine, the introduction of these intra-cellular confinement measures has created a great deal of tension within the prisons. First, despite the telephone credit granted, shoving is becoming more and more frequent and virulent. Similarly, some prisons have complained about poor or non-operational telephone facilities. The lack of visiting rooms and family life units also causes a feeling of abandonment and isolation that is even more pronounced than before the crisis. A study conducted by France 24 has shown the importance of prison work in the experience of detention. Indeed, it plays a much more important role than we think in the psychology of detainees. In an interview with one of them about Konbini, we can feel the distress he expresses about not working anymore. Work occupies their minds and does not keep them in the poor and almost inhuman sanitary conditions that we will develop later. When I speak of tension, I am referring and above all to the riots that occurred in March 2020. The first took place in Grasse on 16 March, the second in Sequedin on the 21st and the last one that we know of, on the 22nd in Uzerche. The testimony of one of the detainees in April 2020 is the source of our information. These riots and anger movements are due to the lack of communication on the health situation on the part of the guards, and to misinformation on the cases of Covid-19 really present in the prisons concerned. Cigarette shortages, emptied canteens, and the ban on going out have a huge impact on the general morale of prisoners. This brings us to the major subject of our study, which is overcrowding in French prisons.

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