Pave: Prisoners Now Expected To Stay In Prisons

Le jour 55 de Sarko

This Saturday is Bastille Day, or as the French quaintly refer to it, with uncharacteristic compression, Fête Nationale. The French will tell you that the 14th of July being celebrated is that of 1790 and not 1789. But it is 1789 that possesses and shapes France's imagination about herself.

There is a big parade (Défilé militaire du 14 juillet) with lots of troops more-or-less in lockstep and a Soviet style show-of-arms. It reassures the French -- or at least Parisians -- that if attacked, the Champs-Élysées will be stoutly defended to the last invited foreign infantryman.

To commemorate the lawless origins of the Republic there is a tradition of torching cars -- a popular holiday pastime [Pause.] or an any-old-time pastime [Sigh.], a national pastime.

Another tradition is freeing criminals serving time in French prisons.

FRENCH PRESIDENT STOPS MASS PARDONS

PARIS July 8, 2007 (Forbes/AP) - Sarkozy said in an interview published Sunday he had been presented with a decree proposing the release of 3,000 prisoners on the July 14 holiday, which commemorates the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison in Paris by angry crowds. The event started the revolution that rid France of its monarchy .

"There will be no mass pardon," Sarkozy told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, confirming a pledge he made during his presidential campaign this spring.

... Sarkozy's predecessor, Jacques Chirac, and previous leaders had used the pardons to relieve chronic overcrowding in French prisons.

And cronyism.

Chirac came under fire for using presidential pardons for personal reasons when he cleared his friend and former athlete Guy Drut of corruption charges last year.

Prison officers have expressed concern about a backlash by inmates expecting a pardon, and a new crush of inmates because of a draft law championed by Sarkozy imposing minimum sentences for repeat offenders.

Sure enough.

FEAR OF PRISON RIOTS AS SARKOZY REJECTS PARDON
PARIS July 9, 2007 (Guardian)

SARKOZY'S REFUSAL TO GRANT
BASTILLE DAY PRISON PARDONS STIRS DEBATE

PARIS, July 9, 2007 (AFP) - "Collective pardons do not make sense, they distort the very nature of punishment," Justice Minister Rachida Dati said Monday.

Sarko:

This is my idea of the republic. I will not grant any collective amnesty and will not accord any collective pardon. I recognize that for humanitarian or extraordinary reasons an individual pardon may be granted. But I do not accept collective pardons as a way to manage prisons.

Yes. Well, that seems about right to us.

Sarkozy's predecessor Jacques Chirac last year allowed 3,500 inmates serving time for non-violent crimes to walk free.

About 61,000 inmates were behind bars as of June 1, some 12,000 more than France's 188 prisons were designed to hold.

Another popular method of French prison management is not to incarcerate criminals, but to give them a train ticket to some other jurisdiction.

Helene Franco, the secretary general of the magistrates' union:

The absence of a decree raises fears of an explosion in the prisons.

Franco said that while the union was not a staunch defender of pardons by decree, the decision "does allow prisons to gain some breathing space", in particular given that incarceration rates have gone up.

Christophe Marques of the Force Ouvriere (Workers' Strength) union representing prison staff:

There is great expectation around the decision to commute sentences and it has a real psychological impact on the prison population.

Heaven forfend! That prisoners should be kept in prisons! Oh! The humanity!

PFFT (What is this?): The humanity 3½ | Rayonnement français ½

Posted by Damian at July 9, 2007 07:30 PM