“Historically low” figures , which the new Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, welcomes, but which speaks volumes about the way in which the prison and judicial authorities acted during the last three months of the health emergency (April , May and June). On July 1, 2020, while confinement ended on May 11, French prisons were only accommodating 58,695 inmates, against 65,300 on April 1 and 70,651 on January 1 of this year. In other words, the decline continued despite the resumption of activity, particularly in the courts and, to a lesser extent, of delinquency. The drop is 20% over one year, while in the previous quarter, in full containment, the annual drop was only 8%.
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According to observers or actors in the legal and penitentiary circles, this spectacular phenomenon could be explained by a difficult resumption of the activity of the courts, which have started up very gradually.
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