RELEVANT ARTICLES
Prison Has Become a Place of Harm
Marc Alric, Philippe Aurouze and Bruno Lachnitt
National Christian Prison Chaplains
La Croix (Website), May 18, 2026
As Christian prison chaplains, we witness every day a reality that statistics struggle to capture, yet which it would be irresponsible to keep silent about. On April 1, 2026, French prisons housed 88,145 people in 63,353 operational spaces — a prison density of 139%, rising to 171% in remand centres — with more than 7,540 inmates sleeping on mattresses laid directly on the floor.
These figures are not abstract statistics
They represent human beings crammed into conditions that fall below European standards for kennels, and corrections officers exhausted within an institution pushed to the breaking point. We know their fatigue and understand their exasperation.
This is the reality we live with daily
When cells overflow, when staff are at their limit, when movement is suspended for lack of guards, religious services and visits are also affected or cancelled outright. People already deprived of their liberty then find themselves deprived of a space for listening, speech, silence, and prayer. In an overcrowded prison environment, this breathing room is not a spiritual luxury; it is, often, what allows people to keep going.
We are neither the mouthpiece of the prison administration nor the representatives of any political leaning
Our place is elsewhere: as close as possible to the people in detention, with the respect owed to each of them, and with the conviction that nothing just can be built on indignity and humiliation.
Yet when detention becomes too crowded, too noisy, too unstable, it is precisely attention, trust, and dignity that erode. Prison ceases to be a place of punishment and becomes a place of harm.
Overcrowding in remand centres is not a matter of comfort: it breeds violence
The ordinary violence between inmates forced into overcrowded proximity; the silent violence inflicted on staff who can no longer cope; the institutional violence that shuts off access to healthcare, visiting rooms, educational programmes, and religious services. By operating in a state of permanent overload, prison becomes a sentence whose meaning has been lost. All that remains is crisis management in a place well on its way to becoming a "human warehouse," as a Council of Europe report from January 2026 put it.
There is a paradox in entrusting chaplains with moral and spiritual support in a space where everything conspires to sever human bonds, without guaranteeing the minimum conditions necessary to carry out that mission.
Freedom of worship cannot remain merely theoretical
It cannot depend on the goodwill of circumstances, nor fall victim to every new surge in overcrowding. Beneath the standard rhetoric about the purpose of punishment, it is punishment itself that is losing all meaning.
And yet solutions exist — without dramatization or ideological posturing
Regulating facility occupancy by setting sustainable thresholds. Resorting earlier and more systematically to sentence adjustments where inmate profiles and circumstances allow, without undermining the execution of judicial decisions.
Ensuring that every facility has a minimum operational margin that guarantees not only security, but also the support activities that include religious services. These solutions require a measure of courage and genuine political will, beyond simply building more cells — which will always prove insufficient if we keep cultivating fear and despair.
Betting on the best in the other person is the only path toward restorative justice, and it is in society's interest — beginning with victims — that those who leave prison be better than when they entered. To despair of others is to produce a world no one can live in.
As chaplains and as Christians, it is our responsibility to make another voice heard.
"Boredom and confinement do no one any good": an immersion at the heart of a detention centre
Tensions and uncertainties at the Mesnil-Amelot immigration detention centre
Cécile Lemoine
La Croix (Website), May 19, 2026
In their annual report published on May 19, 2026, the associations working in immigration detention centres denounce a "massive and ineffective" use of detention for undocumented migrants. La Croix visited the Mesnil-Amelot centre, one of the largest in France.
Shouts erupt in the courtyard: "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar!" "Ah, that's the release of a detainee who has just finished his ninety days," interprets the deputy head of the Mesnil-Amelot immigration detention centre (CRA) in Seine-et-Marne, cocking an ear from the soulless canteen he is showing to Green Party MP Léa Balage El-Mariky on May 15, 2026.
The elected official exercised her parliamentary right of inspection to visit this centre, located near Roissy airport. Made up of two units of 120 places each, the Île-de-France facility is the largest of the 26 establishments designed to hold undocumented foreigners "briefly" before their expulsion from French territory. At Mesnil-Amelot, Algerians, Romanians (1), Tunisians, and Moroccans are the most represented nationalities.
"In recent years, successive laws have made these periods increasingly less brief, and we want to see how this is affecting the way the CRA operates," explains Léa Balage El-Mariky. In 2018, legislation raised the maximum detention period to 90 days, mechanically extending the time people spend there: an average of 33.4 days in 2025, double the 2021 average of 15 days, according to the annual report of the five associations active in detention centres, published on May 19, 2026.
A Declining Removal Rate
Between the football cages stripped of their nets, two men suddenly come to blows. A fight breaks out. "That's what the CRA is," says Nour, a Tunisian detainee. "Boredom and confinement do no one any good." "The longer the detentions last, the more aggressive behaviour we see developing," says one officer working there. "We also see the same people coming back several times a year."
Due to structural obstacles, deportations have continued to decline. At Mesnil-Amelot, only 7% of detainees have been removed since the beginning of the year, according to the centre's deputy head. "Is that all?" marvels Léa Balage El-Mariky. "Are we still building more and more of these centres to expel so few people?" The rugby-built police officer sidesteps the question by invoking his "duty of discretion."
In their report, the associations note that of the 16,467 people held in detention centres in 2025, only 36% were removed, down from 39% in 2024. The rest are simply released.
A small group of men gathers around the MP as she crosses the courtyard toward the dormitory blocks. "Madam! What's the point of handing out removal orders left and right and locking us up if the authorities can't even send us back?" Souleyman, a young Algerian facing a removal order after a prison stint, calls out to her.
Despite the trickle of resumed expulsions of Algerians — blocked for two years and on the agenda of Gérald Darmanin's visit to Algiers on May 18 — the situation of these nationals remains deadlocked, even though they represent the largest nationality group held in detention.
Effectiveness in Question
In 2025, nearly 134,000 removal orders were issued, of which only 11% were carried out. By comparison, Germany issued 55,240 removal orders in 2025 and executed 53% of them. "These figures reflect the incoherence and ineffectiveness of France's increased reliance on detention, which is not translating into higher removal numbers," the report concludes.
The legal situation of each detainee in the centre is tracked on large whiteboards in the central records room. "I've got plenty of public order cases," the deputy head remarks, then explains: "About 40% of detainees are sent here after a stint in prison, because prefectures consider them a potential threat to public order."
The policy in place since 2023 aims to create 3,000 additional detention places by 2030 and to open new centres in Mérignac, Nantes, Béziers, Dijon, and Dunkirk, among others. In 2024, the Court of Auditors estimated the average daily cost of detention at €602 — an amount that keeps rising and is far from negligible for a policy of questionable effectiveness, according to the magistrates. "In terms of public money, this amounts to an insane amount of cash," laments Léa Balage El-Mariky as she leaves the centre. "And all this while the effectiveness of these policies remains very much in doubt."
(1) Romanians, as EU citizens, may enter France freely, but must hold a residence permit if they stay longer than three months.
Death Penalty: Number of Executions Rises 78% to Highest Level Since 1981
Camille Fauqueur
La Croix (Website), May 18, 2026
In its annual report on capital punishment, published Monday May 18, Amnesty International counts 2,707 executions across 17 countries in 2025. The overwhelming majority of death sentences recorded were carried out in Iran.
2,707 people executed in one year
That is the figure documented in the report Death Sentences and Executions 2025, published Monday May 18 by Amnesty International. Globally, the use of capital punishment reached its highest level since 1981 — the year the NGO began recording this data.
The application of the death penalty rose by a staggering 78% compared to 2024, driven by a "handful of governments determined to rule through fear," Amnesty condemns in its report. In 2024, 1,189 fewer people had been subjected to capital punishment.
A doubling of executions in Iran
While 17 countries carried out the death penalty in 2025, the overwhelming majority of executions recorded took place in Iran. "The death penalty is being used as a tool of terror by the regime," explains Anne Denis, head of Amnesty International's death penalty abolition commission. "In 2025, we saw a sharp increase following the 12-day war. It was used as a way to frighten people and send the message: 'if you protest over the war, this is what awaits you.' It is a political tool."
Iran alone accounted for 2,159 executions during the year — more than double the 2024 figure, a level not seen since 1981. The NGO does, however, sound the alarm that it is China where the greatest number of people were actually executed — "several thousand," according to the report. Yet the true scale of this cannot be known, as such data is classified as a state secret by Beijing. Similarly, figures for North Korea, where Amnesty International "estimates that the use of the death penalty has been massive," have not been published.
In total, 17 countries applied capital punishment in 2025, four of which — the United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Sudan, and Taiwan — resumed executions after a hiatus. They join a group of states "determined to execute people at all costs, in defiance of the continuing global trend toward abolition," laments Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard. In the majority of cases, executions are carried out by shooting or hanging. In some instances, the death penalty is used as a means of controlling minorities. "In Saudi Arabia, for example, the country is Sunni, so Shia Muslims are disproportionately targeted by executions," notes Anne Denis.
Drug-related sentences on the rise
Nearly half of the executions recorded were linked to drug offences, the NGO details — a violation of international law, which stipulates that capital punishment should be reserved for only the most serious crimes, such as intentional homicide. In Iran alone, 998 people were executed on drug-related charges. "These are not major traffickers, but often dealers or couriers — small-time operatives," specifies Anne Denis. Saudi Arabia recorded 240 such executions. These sentences show no sign of abating, the NGO warns: authorities in Algeria, Kuwait, and the Maldives have also adopted legislative measures aimed at expanding the application of the death penalty for this category of offence.
Some countries also expanding the death penalty to other grounds
In Burkina Faso, the government adopted a bill amending the criminal code to reinstate capital punishment for offences such as "high treason," "terrorism," and "acts of espionage." In Chad, a commission has been established to examine all matters related to the death penalty, including its possible reinstatement.
113 countries have abolished the death penalty
"Hope is stronger than fear," Amnesty International insists in its report, drawing on more encouraging figures: no executions or death sentences were recorded in Europe or Central Asia. To date, 113 countries worldwide have abolished capital punishment.
In Lebanon and Nigeria, texts aimed at abolition have been introduced, while in Kyrgyzstan, the Constitutional Court declared an attempt to reinstate the death penalty unconstitutional — a measure of reassurance after such a bleak overall picture. Progress remains to be made, however: at the end of 2025, 25,508 people were on death row in more than 45 countries. Last week, two inmates were executed in the United States.