Human rights do not end at prison gates or at the doors of psychiatric hospitals. But prisoners with psychosocial disabilities (mental health conditions) can face added punishment – the suffering caused by lack of adequate health care and exacerbated by poor prison conditions.
It’s a real problem in France, as the Committee Against Torture identified in its recent review .
The committee – tasked with monitoring states’ compliance with the UN Convention against Torture – expressed concern about the lack of mental health staff working in French prisons, echoing the findings of a recent Human Rights Watch report I wrote on inadequate conditions for prisoners with psychosocial disabilities.
During my visits to several French prisons in 2015, prisoners with psychosocial disabilities told me how their appointments with psychiatrists were brief and infrequent, and often limited to prescribing medication. “Marc,” a man serving a long sentence and whose arms were scarred from self-inflicted wounds, told me he saw a psychiatrist for only five minutes each month. “She asks, ‘How are you? Is the treatment ok?’” he said.
The last comprehensive study of mental health in French prisons, published in 2004, found that almost a quarter of inmates had psychosis, which include depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia – much higher than the general population. Human Rights Watch has found that for these prisoners, the conditions in which they are held – including overcrowding and isolation – combined with the social stigma and lack of adequate mental health care, result in greater suffering compared to their fellow inmates.
The UN committee is also concerned that prisoners with psychosocial disabilities who are transferred to psychiatric hospitals are often placed in isolation and physically restrained, a concern we share. “Sarah,” a young prisoner, described the abuse which can constitute inhuman or degrading treatment: “I prefer 1,000 times to be in a cell than in an isolated room in the [psychiatric] hospital, my arms and feet tied down as if I were an animal,” she said.
Prisoners with psychosocial disabilities have the right to health and to be free from ill-treatment. France has the means to make these rights a reality, and should do so without delay.
