France: "escaping the prison diktat"

Sylvain Lhuissier. The main idea of the book is to move away from the prison diktat and the belief that prison is a magical solution against delinquency. Prison isn’t a guarantee of security, and yet it has asserted itself as the default solution. From a citizen point of view, the only thing known about prisons is that they’re overcrowded. This information isn’t enough: firstly, it doesn’t explain why the prison population has multiplied by 2.3 in 50 years, or why the construction of new facilities doesn’t make it possible to reduce overcrowding. Secondly, it says nothing about the usefulness of prison, the results it produces - particularly the recidivism rate, which is almost 60%, as well as its consequences in terms of mental health, mental illness and addiction, for example.

We expect two things from prison: guaranteed safety and reintegration. That’s what we claim happens. It’s an illusion. Because putting a person in prison for five, 10, 15 years doesn’t protect us if that same person, upon leaving prison, reoffends more than if they had never been there in the first place. The bet has therefore been lost.

I’ve tried to elaborate on all of this in my book but I wanted to take it a step further. I ventured into tackling more unacknowledged aspects. Prison is closely linked to this role of punishment which society is struggling to part with. Collectively, we still expect prison sentences to make the inmate pay, suffer and have a hard time. Unconsciously, we collectively think there’s something satisfying about prison conditions being terrible, like suffering is a part of the sentence. As soon as conditions improve, we hear people say things like “Prison is Club Med”.

Unfortunately, until we collectively reevaluate this, we won’t fix the problem. Ultimately, prison has a second unacknowledged role: that of approving a form of marginalisation of certain people in our society. Apparently, some people have their place in society and others don’t. What this means is that certain types of people are troubled and don’t find their place in society. They find themselves invisible in prison, where all the failures of public policies are concentrated: those of health (mentally ill prisoners), national education (if we look at the graduation or literacy rates), discrimination, etc. It’s high time that we change our expectations of prison. They’re archaic.

SL. There are many alternatives to imprisonment because there are independent sentences. For example, house arrest under electronic monitoring and community service, which I’m particularly interested in. There are also alternatives to prosecution during the proceedings (work placements, day-fines, unpaid work, which is a lighter version of community service).

When I hear about alternatives to prison, something I wanted to highlight in my book is the existence of services such as the Prison Service for Integration and Probation (SPIP), which few people know about. It’s like knowing about doctors but not realising that pharmacists exist! It’s a nuisance to forget about them when trying to understand the areas of justice and punishment. Their role is crucial. They accompany the execution of sentences. To understand their role, it must be understood that the alternatives, before being a punishment in and of themselves, pursue an objective, that of desistance, i.e. the abandonment of criminal acts. The question to be answered is therefore not “what the person should be sentenced to” but rather “what should be put in place to prevent them from doing it again”. This was the objective of the probation measures put in place with Christiane Taubira. However, this system was short lived even though it provided more support and all sorts of useful measures for desistance: emotional management courses to prevent violence, specialised care, a la carte support.

We’ve seen a drastic drop in the number of prisoners. What I take from this is that putting an end to overcrowding isn’t very complicated. Effectively, this drop happened in three months, thanks to a shared willingness to achieve it. However, we’re not seeing hordes of delinquents on the streets, which is the impression that some may have.

The question now is how to find ways to maintain and continue this improvement, as some facilities are still overcrowded. Alternatives to imprisonment would make it possible not to fill up the prisons again when judicial activity resumes. It should be kept in mind that prison sentences of less than a year rarely make sense and should seldom be issued. It would be in our interest to make more use of alternative sentencing. For support at the end of a sentence, we use the tools that allow a gradual and constructive exit. During the COVID-19 crisis, there have been pronounced sentence adjustments for people who had two or three months left in their sentence. This is a good idea. Probation must be used to ensure SPIP support at the end of the sentence. These are the same tools to use for alternative probation and at the end of a sentence. They would make it possible to get people out of prison and avoid release without any support.

SL. I followed this from afar and didn’t get personally involved as a former member. Genepi has acknowledged the end of operations in prison, its workshops and educational support. The Ministry of Justice stopped funding the organisation. In terms of results, it’s a huge loss.

I’m not sure we’ve fully grasped the extent of this loss. Genepi is the first organisation that comes to people’s minds when prison is brought up. Many people who are involved in this field—sentence enforcement judges, probation and rehabilitation services, volunteers or employees of NGOs—have come through Genepi. I personally believe that there are two main routes that spark an interest in the prison system: attending hearings and crossing paths with Genepi.

The importance of this association was not taken into account: a bridge between society and prison suddenly collapsed.

Genepi’s role now is to focus on raising awareness and campaigning. I’m afraid they didn’t realise that their strength was bringing students into prison and allowing them to see for themselves the reality of imprisonment. I believe that we’ve lost the best campaigning tool we have. Genepi is an organisation that faces particular challenges: each year, half of its members and office staff change. It’s a difficult balancing act and the trust of partners is hard to maintain when their participants change on an annual basis. Genepi certainly suffered a little from the lack of continuity. Regarding the situation, I’m honestly not sure that the “extreme” position of the National Bureau is representative of that of all its members. I understand why they defend this radical line, but there may have been a disconnect between many volunteers working in prisons and others who choose to spend more time there. These are the same people who will join the national and regional ranks of the organisation.

The State had a backlash against Génépi. It’s important that these associations be able to intervene on the ground and also choose to take a critical stance towards the actions of the State. Here, there’s no solution: either you denounce or you act. It’s a way of imposing rules which, to me, seems fairly specific to the Ministry of Justice. I don’t think that the Emmaus charity would be asked to close all its accommodation centres each time it publicly denounced insecurity or the conditions of substandard housing. Organisations can do both with, of course, some points of focus. I was amazed at the proactivity of the administration, at both the local and national level. One of the slogans that shocked people a lot, I believe, was “prison kills”. Some interpreted it as though “guards are criminals”, and I don’t think that’s what was meant. It would be helpful if the Ministry of Justice could remain calmer when it comes to criticism.