The number of prisoners in France has reached a historical maximum – the capacity of prisons exceeded by more than 33 percent.
The number of prisoners in May reached a historical maximum – 1 May. There were 83,681, although the official capacity of prison facilities is 62,570 seats. This stems from Saturday’s data from the Ministry of Justice, TASR reports according to AFP.
Over the past year, the number of prisoners in France has increased by 6,000 and the occupancy rate reached 133.7 percent. A record -wasted 23 out of 186 French detention facilities, where the capacity was exceeded by more than twice.
Plan for new prisons
Minister of Justice Gerald Darmanin described the overcrowding of prisons as an “unacceptable” thing and proposed to build new prison facilities. In mid -May, he also published a plan to build a strictly guarded prison in Guyana, France and, overseas north of Brazil, are to place the “most dangerous” criminals.
The overcrowding of prisons is “bad for everyone”, Darmanin said at the end of April. According to him, prisoners have “terrible conditions” and prison guards face “uncertainty and violence”.
Attacks on prisons
A series of coordinated attacks on French prisons took place in April, where the attackers burned cars around them, leaving inscriptions on the walls and shooting from automatic weapons for one prison. The Ministers of Justice Gérald Darmanin and Interior Bruno Retailleau then confirmed that they will intensify the fight against drugs.
At the end of April, Parliament passed a new law on the fight against drug crime, and some of the most dangerous French drug traders will be detained in strictly guarded prisons in the coming months.
France among the worst
According to a study by the Council of Europe, France was the third worst for Cyprus and Romania in 2023 in June 2024. Data for 2023 provided 51 prison reports from the 46 Member States of the Council of Europe. Data from Belarus, Kosovo and the Russian Federation were not part of statistics because they are not members of the Council of Europe and there were also missing data from Crimea and several other smaller areas.
