In a report published on Wednesday 12 March, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) expresses its concern at the overcrowding (sometimes reaching an occupancy rate of more than 225%) and violence exacerbated by the heat and humidity in prisons in French Guiana and Guadeloupe.
It also criticises the lack of psychiatric care facilities adapted to the needs of patients hospitalised without consent in these two French overseas collectivities.
Based on a visit by experts in November and December 2023, the report also mentions inadequate devices for recovering drug capsules in corpore (‘bodypackers’), which may even amount to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, as well as detainees attached to fixed objects such as rings or chains.
In its very detailed response, sent in December 2024, France announced that it had begun to put in place measures to put an end to the practices denounced by the CPT.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/fw6
Link to the French government’s response: https://aeur.eu/f/fw7 (in French) (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)