International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 35

International Journal on Criminology
the course of six months. Purchased for between 80 and 100 Euros, the phones were
sold at 400 to 500 Euros. Two prisoners were accused of selling them on, inside the
prison—Simon G. and Pierre-Antoine P, sentenced in December 2013 to three years
for criminal conspiracy. The sister of one of the detainees involved, along with a former
inmate, Rudolf G. were also arrested. 27
Shortly thereafter, 28 a guard at Laon detention center was arrested on suspicion
of drug trafficking and theft inside the establishment. He may have had accomplices
among the detainees and other colleagues. Two handguns were seized at his home. He
had joined the staff at Laon prison in 2011 and held union responsibilities.
The facts reported here are what doctors might call a symptomatology of the
threat of prison criminality, that is to say, “that which reveals a condition.”
This symptomatology legitimately allows us to consider that prison gangs, or
at least real structures, exist in France, as they do in other countries, which we will
shortly discuss.
The brutal manner of Rédoine Faïd's escape should perhaps prompt some
serious reflection rather than a few jeremiads and the setting up of a psychological
support unit here and there. The symptoms indicate a very worrying situation which,
as in many other countries, calls for thought and very specific action. Yet despite
these and other examples, despite the contacts they have, despite numerous requests,
and despite what they know to be happening, the Ministry of Justice and the prison
authorities manage to observe total silence on the subject. We are faced, as ever, with
the notion of the “French exception” which believes that “nothing happening elsewhere
can happen in France.”
Madame Taubira, the Minister of Justice (Garde des Sceaux), as I revealed at
the beginning of this discourse, goes so far as to say that “the Department of Justice
being the ministry responsible for the protection of freedoms, must not find itself in a
'confusion of categories' by having the power to prescribe the direct implementation
of intelligence-gathering techniques.”
These words were spoken at her hearing by the Committee on Legislation of
the National Assembly on the bill relating to intelligence gathering, on Tuesday, March
31, 2015.
She went on to say that it is “undesirable, after consideration, to integrate
information from prisons with that of the intelligence community,” concluding
“Integrating prison information with that of the intelligence community would place
us at odds with the constitutional obligations of the Department of Justice, namely the
constitutional guarantee of the preservation of freedoms” and, heaven forfend, “The
Ministry of Justice would end up prescribing intelligence techniques. This is not a
service currently exercised by prison staff.”
All this is undoubtedly because there is absolutely nothing troubling going
on in the French prisons system, and it is definitely not important to know if it is
27
Corse Matin, March 10, 2015
28
L’Aisne nouvelle, March 25, 2015
30