"Faced with the health crisis, more must be done in prison establishments!"

Béatrice Brugère is General Secretary of UNITÉ MAGISTRAT. Sébastien Nicolas is Secretary General of the FO DIRECTION penitentiary union.

We, representatives of magistrates and prison directors, wish once again in responsibility to express our concerns regarding the management of the health crisis at the Ministry of Justice and more particularly its impact within penal establishments.

We wish to express once again our disagreement following a series of measures that we consider ineffective.

Indeed, the sanitary measures which we consider essential, are still not implemented. We ask for the systematic screening of all the personnel who contribute to the continuity of the public service of justice and of all the people accommodated in the establishments of the ministry (prisons, establishments for minors, educational centers for the judicial protection of youth) in order to '' immediately identify carriers of the virus.

First of all, remember that in the state of scientific knowledge, we are faced with an airborne virus, which is mainly transmitted by salivary droplets which are deposited on objects and hands. Some carriers are asymptomatic, that is to say contagious without showing symptoms, while the viral load is now estimated at 20 days.

Faced with these known data, the subject of prison density, which had been highlighted for months, called for drastic sanitary measures to preserve staff and detainees. Like the hospitals which are today in lack of beds due to budgetary restrictions, the prison under-equipment which we do not cease denouncing, and which does not allow individual confinement, turns out today problematic in the crisis management. This culpable under-equipment today justifies urgently, for lack of an alternative, the early release of prisoners.

From the start of the crisis, aware that barrier measures would be insufficient in prison, and in the courts, we asked that ministry personnel in contact with the public, and in particular detained persons, be provided with masks and gel hydroalcoholic.

We were partially heard, 11 days after the start of confinement ... Surgical masks, for lack of more suitable equipment, were delivered and distributed in the establishments and only for personnel in prolonged contact with the public.

But for the magistrates, the minister explained to us that the masks were not necessary for the moment.

We demand the implementation of a large-scale testing of the penal population (70,000 people) which appears to date the only credible health measure to begin to stem an epidemic in detention. The German example confirms us today in this request since our neighbors carry out 500,000 tests per day and register a death rate 10 times lower than that observed in France ...

Despite this, the Chancellery concentrates its efforts on a reduction in prison density which raises questions on more than one count since it is offset from the health issue.

If the limitation of the nuts seems coherent insofar as, by decreasing the prison density, it facilitates the management of the health crisis internally, still it would be necessary that all the incarcerated people are tested before entering detention.

Likewise, the strategy of mass release without prior testing poses a triple difficulty.

Firstly, it implies an accentuation of the activity of the whole penal chain which exposes the personnel and their families.

Secondly, it encourages massive releases which, despite the safeguards provided by criminal orders, question in terms of prevention of recidivism at a time when law enforcement activity is legitimately concentrated elsewhere and where justice works in minimum service.

Finally, these mass release measures have no sanitary meaning because they lead to the release of potentially carrier individuals since they have not been tested.

Aware of the difficulties facing the Ministry of Justice and the complexity of this crisis, we are committed to making our proposals heard. This is why, we regret that faced with this unprecedented epidemic, the ministry is no longer surrounded by constructive, and not ideological, proposals from the actors on the ground that we represent. There is an urgent need to act!