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: The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

France: Incarceration Nation. French prisons are becoming an embarrassment.

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Incarceration Nation French prisons are becoming an embarrassment. Tracy McNicoll Aug 2, 2008 It's an especially hot summer in French jails. In July, the number of detainees hit 64,250 people?the highest number since World War II, when jails were crowded with accused Nazi collaborators. Worse: the prisons are operating at 126 percent of capacity?far higher than the European average?with some French jails housing twice as many inmates as there is room for. Seven in 10 prisoners are living in overcrowded conditions, according to France's International Prisons Observatory (OIP), with much of the overcrowding concentrated in maisons d'arrêt?jails that house both the accused awaiting trial as well as convicts serving relatively short terms. "Not a day goes by without one or more facilities calling to let us know about an attack," says Claude Tournel, assistant secretary-general of the UFAP, a prison personnel union...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on August 02, 2008 (boomark / email).