Overcrowding: deemed “inhuman” conditions of detention at the prison Nîmes – Europe1

More than 400 detainees for 180 places: Nîmes prison overflows. Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas visit Monday that prison whose occupancy rate is among the highest in France. Both politicians must evoke precisely this problem of prison overcrowding, which brings a lot of human and health inconveniences, as emphasized by the President of the International Observatory of Prisons on Europe 1 .

Hot water for a few months. “9 m2, it is a child really not very large room. There must be 45 degrees because there has poor ventilation conditions, they are three to a cell and when it is hot, it is really unbearable, “laments Bernadette Jonquet. Only two beds per cell of three people: one of the prisoners must sleep on the floor on an old mattress thrown on the floor. The walls are decrepit and rusty bars on the window. The hot water did not arrive for a few months. These overcrowded conditions are particularly difficult and outside the shower and promenade, inmates of this prison spend most of their time locked up.

A distribution kit household . The parlor is also overcrowded. “It should be about 45 m2, and

there may be up to 100, 120 people,” added Bernadette Jonquet. Front of the prison, inmates families are dubious about what can be done, she says, because “it does not move anyone.” The Council of State ruled last year that the conditions were “inhumane and degrading”. But since then, few changes were made, apart from the distribution of kits to clean the cells. In an interview to the newspaper Midi Libre , the Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas promised to Monday proposals to construct new prison places from September.