Due to prison overcrowding, "
849 prisoners are now forced to sleep on mattresses placed on the floor,
" said Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti on Monday in the chamber of the Senate.
Read also: Why the prison overcrowding figures continue to drop
The Minister of Justice intervened during the examination at first reading of a bill aimed at responding to the Constitutional Council's requirement to open an effective remedy to detainees, in order to be able to challenge their conditions of detention when they are are deemed unworthy.
"
I have one certainty, the one that accompanied me throughout my life when I was a lawyer and which, now Keeper of the Seals, requires me to act: the deprivation of liberty must not be - cannot be to be - a deprivation of dignity,
”said Dupond-Moretti.
"
Because to deny the fundamental rights of the imprisoned is to challenge their very humanity
".
The health crisis "
has generated an unprecedented reduction in the prison population
", recalled the Minister.
"
But since the resumption of judicial activity, the number of detainees has increased again: we have counted 5,000 detainees more since the first deconfinement,
" he said.
"
And 849 detainees are now forced to sleep on mattresses placed on the floor,
" he added.
"
We must therefore put in place a coherent and proactive prison policy because we cannot lose this opportunity of a controlled penal population offering both better detention and working conditions for prison staff,
" he said. asserted.
According to the Minister of Justice, "
the modifications of the sentence as soon as they are pronounced have very significantly increased from 3 to 11% in less than a year
".
However, the minister noted that since the promulgation of the programming and reform law for Justice in March 2020 which prohibits prison sentences of less than one month, "
227 de facto illegal sentences have all the same been pronounced
".
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