In its 2024 report, published on Thursday 24 April, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) expresses its “serious concern” at the sharp rise in prison overcrowding and calls on several States to put an end to the “informal prisoner hierarchy” inherited from their former membership of the Soviet bloc and still active in their prison systems.
“Prison overcrowding completely undermines the functioning of prisons and potentially exposes individuals to inhuman and degrading treatment. It causes poorer living conditions, increased tension and violence, fewer purposeful activities and less preparation for prisoners to return to the community”, stresses Alan Mitchell, President of the CPT, before calling on European governments to “show political will to solve it by reforming criminal law policies and allocating adequate investment to prison and probation services”.
The issue of the “informal prisoner hierarchy”, introduced in Tsarist Russia to manage a large prison population, persists in Russian prisons, but also, to varying degrees, in those of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia and Ukraine.
This issue is the subject of specific new standards and recommendations published in parallel with the report.
For example, the CPT recommends the abolition of the large dormitories, which allow prisoners to be divided between the “leaders” and the “untouchables”, who are stigmatised and often subjected to intimidation and violence.
In addition, the CPT stresses the need to improve the treatment of persons placed in psychiatric facilities against their will.
Good practice has been observed, but major challenges remain, particularly in relation to consent to treatment and practices such as seclusion and mechanical or chemical restraint.
On this point, the CPT regrets that these practices too often take precedence over psycho-social therapies that are more conducive to recovery and reintegration.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/gii
Link to “informal hierarchy” standards: https://aeur.eu/f/gij (Véronique Leblanc)