Always more attacks and mattresses on the ground: at Gradignan prison, guards powerless in the face of prison overcrowding

At the Bordeaux-Gradignan prison center, the situation is not improving for prison guards. Understaffed, they have to manage inmates locked in cells that are too small for the number of prisoners. The old prison, which had to be closed due to its unsanitary conditions, still contained 621 inmates this Monday, more than double its capacity, which stands at 234 places. Thus, 170 inmates sleep on the floor. In the new adjoining prison, undersized from the start, 103 mattresses are placed on the floor while the building has only 142 places. As a reminder, in 2023, the stop nut system was put in place when there were 150 mattresses on the ground. It is clear that the situation has not improved.

This prison overcrowding makes prisoners particularly tense, even violent. On Saturday, for the second time in a month, a prisoner attacked prison guards in order to obtain his placement in the disciplinary unit, where punished inmates are alone in their cell. To achieve his ends, the man bit and strangled a guard. A month earlier, on September 27, this same inmate had attacked another with a fork. At the same time, significant drug trafficking is raging within the prison.

“The occupancy rates in remand centers for men are unprecedented... Prison guards are subject to attacks, insults and threats every day in the midst of unmanageable detention where prisoners are under the influence of narcotics of all kinds. The management is incapable of ensuring our safety,” a prison guard told Le Figaro. The UFAP Unsa Justice union insists on the need to increase the structure's resources if the number of detainees continues to explode.