Pierre-Marie Sève is director of the Institute for Justice, an association working to reform justice and fight crime.
LE FIGARO. - With more than 72,000 prisoners on December 1, French prisons broke a new historic record. In January 2021, French places of incarceration had only 60,698 operational. Have we underestimated the number of prison places to be built?
Pierre-Marie SÈVE. -
It is almost impossible to correctly estimate the number of prison places “to be built”.
Because the incarceration of more prisoners itself has a deterrent effect and therefore a reduction in delinquency.
First of all, what is certain is the recent increase in needs in France.
The number of offenders in the population has undoubtedly increased since the 1980s. The evolution, for example, of assault and battery in France, the number of which has increased sevenfold since 1989, is a clear indicator of this.
But faced with this necessary increase in needs, the construction of prison places only obeyed a political and not a pragmatic logic.
Historically, majorities on the right have always favored the construction of prisons while the left opposed it.
The latest example is the arrival of Christiane Taubira at the Ministry of Justice in 2012. She immediately froze the construction of prisons decided under the Sarkozy era.
We have strong delinquency and too weak punishment capacities.
Pierre-Marie Seve
Another symbolic example dates from the mid-1980s. During cohabitation under François Mitterrand, the Chirac government planned a very large prison construction program, 40,000 places.
But the media and political offensive of the judicial left was then very powerful led by the Syndicat de la Magistrature.
The Keeper of the Seals, Albin Chalandon, then had to announce the reduction of this number to 13,000 places, well below the needs.
The result today is that we have strong delinquency and weak punishment capacities.
Doesn't this prison overcrowding contradict the idea that our justice system is lax?
It seems so at first sight and this is the conclusion that the ideological adversaries of prison have.
However, it is very important to put these figures into perspective.
The conclusion is then completely the opposite.
Indeed, according to Council of Europe figures, as of January 31, 2021, France imprisoned 92 people per inhabitant, that is to say a figure less below the European average and median.
And those numbers have been consistent for years.
It must be said again: there are few incarcerations in France.
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But despite this chronic inability to punish, French delinquency and criminality are stronger in France than among our neighbors.
The homicide rate per inhabitant is for example much higher in France than most of our direct neighbours: Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain... According to Eurostat, France is second in Europe in terms of the number of assaults per inhabitant.
Finally, the Numbéo ranking also shows that tourists and residents feel more insecure in France than elsewhere in Europe.
In the Netherlands, you are incarcerated very quickly, which has a much more deterrent effect.
Pierre-Marie Seve
The Czech Republic incarcerates twice as much while it has half as many homicides per inhabitant as France.
So there is something wrong with our model.
In short, prison overcrowding is therefore much more a maladjustment of the prison population to French crime and not the mark of a policy of firmness.
This incarceration record is also beaten almost every year, including under Christiane Taubira.
While France is facing a problematic prison overcrowding, the Netherlands is closing prisons. How to explain this discrepancy?
This can be explained by several reasons:
First, the Netherlands had a fairly high level of crime in the early 2000s, similar to that experienced by France today.
Their prison park was however up to the stakes.
It is therefore easier to close prisons when there are too many of them.
Secondly, and this is the main reason, the Netherlands has implemented a judicial policy which has produced very good results.
Based on a basic principle of criminology, according to which the certainty of the sentence is more important than its possible severity, the Netherlands have done the opposite of what is currently done in France.
In France, incarceration, which is generally rare, occurs after a high and random number of offences.
The incarceration is then rather long because it gives the change of years of impunity… In the Netherlands, we incarcerate very quickly, which has a much more dissuasive effect.
The Dutch have a low prison occupancy rate, but a very high prison entry rate.
It's that there is a lot of turnover.
Should we take inspiration from the Dutch model?
Undoubtedly yes.
Note that the Dutch model only implemented a basic criminological principle, known since Cesare Beccaria in the 18th century.
This principle had however been forgotten by the politicians in charge of Justice in many European countries until recently.
But now that this model has proven itself in the Netherlands and the United States, and given the state of our prisons, he is even becoming guilty of not being inspired by it.
