Extreme heat exposes crisis inside Europe's overcrowded prisons
Heatwaves across Europe are putting already overcrowded prison systems under growing strain, with inmates and staff in France, Italy and Belgium reporting stifling cells, rising tensions and facilities ill-equipped to cope with extreme temperatures.
In France, where prisons were running at an average occupancy rate of 141.3 percent on 1 July, the country's chief prison inspector said complaints surged during a severe heatwave in June.
Dominique Simonnot said her office was inundated with so many reports from detainees that it had to take on an extra employee.
"Imagine – we are suffocating in our flats, and they are three to four people in one nine-metre-square cell, in a building that is not adapted, not air conditioned, old and where the heat is overwhelming," Simonnot said.
At Orleans-Saran prison, one of France's newer facilities, 29-year-old inmate Manu said he spent much of the day lying on his bed and trying to move as little as possible.
"You have to deal with it mentally," he said during a visit to the prison in July.
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Overcrowding magnifies the heat
At Limoges prison, around 270 kilometres south of Orleans, an inmate told his lawyer and mother that he had passed out from the heat and gashed his head in a fall while getting up to use the toilet early on 8 July.
A prison officers' union representative gave a different account, saying the prisoner had slipped while climbing up towards a window for fresh air. Neither account could be independently verified.
His lawyer, Charly Salkazanov, has asked the prison for the inmate's medical file.
"This kind of thing will happen repeatedly until the authorities wake up," he said.
The Bordeaux regional prison service, which oversees Limoges, declined to comment on the incident but said measures included increased access to showers and drinking water, and allowing prisoners to buy fans and sun cream.
The French justice ministry said similar measures had been introduced nationwide.
"In the long and medium term we need to simply try and fight against prison overcrowding, which accentuates the difficulties of the heatwave," ministry spokesperson Sacha Straub-Kahn said in June.
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Similar pressures across Europe
Italy's prisons were running at an average of just under 140 percent occupancy in late July, according to prison rights group Antigone, while Belgium's rate stood at 121 percent in August.
On 14 July, Italian prison rights activists staged simultaneous visits to 34 facilities to highlight what they called inhumane conditions.
"It's absurd that there are no refrigerators in cells, it's absurd that there aren't fans everywhere," Antigone head Patrizio Gonnella said outside Rome's Regina Coeli prison.
Italy's justice ministry has allocated €800,000 for prisons to buy fans and refrigerators and has promised 10,000 additional prison spaces by the end of the year, although ministry data shows none have yet been created.
Parliament also passed a law in July allowing thousands of prisoners with drug or alcohol addictions to serve sentences at home while undergoing rehabilitation.
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In Belgium, Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden said prisoners had been given greater access to water and showers, while prison authorities have told directors to maintain heatwave measures into September.
At Ghent prison, director Pieter Van Caeneghem said 447 inmates were being held in a facility designed for 260.
"All the problems linked to overcrowding are twice or 10 times more difficult when there is a heatwave," he said.
At Merksplas prison, north-east of Antwerp, director Serge Rooman said authorities had begun leaving cell windows open overnight during periods of extreme heat to improve ventilation.
He said the underlying problem remained ageing infrastructure, including single-glazed windows and inadequate airflow.
"Nobody wins votes by saying they are going to build or renovate prisons because it's too hot in the summer," Rooman said.
"But in Belgium, the punishment is the deprivation of liberty – not exposure to inhuman conditions."
(with Reuters)