Question 15854 — places of deprivation of liberty

Summary

Mr. Jean-François Coulomme alerts the Minister of Labor, Health and Solidarity to the policy of reducing risks in prison in terms of drugs. Last January, 17 associations challenged the State on the policy of reducing drug risks in prison, with the title “France respects neither the health nor the fundamental rights of incarcerated people”. Indeed, since 2016, Parliament has included in law health the extension of the principle of equivalence of care between the open and closed environment to risk reduction (RdR). Eight years later, the implementing decree has still not been published and the law is still not respected. As a result, access to RdR tools and devices is almost non-existent in prison. The current response to risk reduction in prisons does not meet the health challenges public. The material made available in detention is much more limited than in an open environment and its distribution varies greatly from one prison establishment to another. The very low access to RdR in prison endangers the health of incarcerated people who are already particularly fragile, hinders the decline in the HIV and hepatitis epidemics as well as respect for their fundamental rights. As the associations point out, the situation current situation in French prisons is a real health emergency because it combines a high prevalence of addictions, poor drinking conditions and a high prevalence of infectious diseases. In this particularly alarming health context, which has not evolved since the 2016 health law, it appears essential that the operational implementation of the RdR in prison environments be supervised by the publication of an implementing decree. Thus, the MP questions the Ministry of Health to find out if the future decree intends to: provide for incarcerated people the same devices and tools for reducing risks and harm as outside the prison (see the list of prevention materials for risk reduction services, Ministry of Solidarity and Health, 2020, including syringe exchange programs) and guarantee their access; guarantee accessibility, in complete confidentiality, to these tools (which implies providing for possible use in cells, without conditions of individual confinement or a prison density less than 100%), tools which cannot be the subject of disciplinary measures; guarantee access to risk reduction tools and devices in all prison establishments, without exception (the implementation of the risk reduction strategy is entrusted to the health units, in partnership with the prison administration and the various public and private stakeholders, including associations); guarantee the participation of all stakeholders, including incarcerated people (according to the participatory approach) in the development and implementation of risk reduction at the scale of the establishment penitentiary. He wants to know her intentions on this matter.

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