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 :- Aux mauvaises conditions matérielles et financières inhérentes aux lieux de privation de liberté qui entraînent généralement des mauvais traitements (et sont même, dans certains cas, constitutifs de torture).
 :The situation is summed up by the SPT the the words that "the situation of of the imprisoned persons is "extrémement préoccupant" (SPT Rapport sur la visite au Gabon, 2014).
-Similar reports are available for some of the poorer countries in Latin America. Here is an example for a country ranked
+Similar reports are available for some of the poorer countries in Latin America. Here is an example for a country ranked 106 on Pasquali's list:
 :55.	Overcrowding remains a cause of concern. Tacumbú has capacity for approximately 1,200 inmates but houses far more than double that number. The Subcommittee is aware that the Government has made an effort to increase the number of beds in Tacumbú Prison, but would point out that those efforts will not be sufficient, since the prison structure is inadequate. ... The Subcommittee is of the view that Tacumbú National Prison should be closed as soon as possible and requests confirmation from the State party of the above-mentioned announcement, together with information on the timetable for its closure...
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 Similar reports can be obtained also for some European countries. Here is an example for a country ranked 61 by Pasquali:
+:Regarding the situation in prisons, numerous credible allegations consistent with physical ill-treatment (punches, including with reinforced gloves, kicks with the knee and feet and blows with a truncheon) were received by the delegation. They were mainly inflicted on prisoners under a maximum security regime (“RMS”) and in the closed regime units of Arad and Oradea prisons by members of the intervention group (wearing balaclavas or masks). Medical evidence compatible with the allegations made was found in a certain number of prisoners' medical files in these two establishments. As regards material conditions in prisons, the report notes an overall high-level of overcrowding, with barely 2m² of living space per person in Târgşor Women’s Prison; these conditions were further aggravated by the fact that prisoners generally spent 20 to 22 hours a day in their cells. Furthermore, the report contains recommendations to reinforce the numbers of prison and health-care staff in the establishments visited and to offer work and/or socio-educational activities to prisoners under RMS and closed regimes.
-The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT 2015) stated in a report that "numerous credible allegations consistent with physical ill-treatment (punches, including with reinforced gloves, kicks with the knee and feet and blows with a truncheon) were received by the delegation. They were mainly inflicted on prisoners under a maximum security regime (“RMS”) and in the closed regime units of Arad and Oradea prisons by members of the intervention group (wearing balaclavas or masks). Medical evidence compatible with the allegations made was found in a certain number of prisoners' medical files in these two establishments. As regards material conditions in prisons, the report notes an overall high-level of overcrowding, with barely 2m² of living space per person in Târgşor Women’s Prison; these conditions were further aggravated by the fact that prisoners generally spent 20 to 22 hours a day in their cells."
+(CPT News Flash on the visit to Romania 2014, for a detailled report see the french version).
-In 2016, because of the poor conditions in Romanian local prisons, the ECHR took the unusual step of according almost 100,000 euros in compensation to 18 (ex-) convicts - instead of the much lower symbolic sums that it normally accords to successful plaintiffs.
+In 2016, because of the poor conditions in Romanian local prisons, the ECHR took the unusual step of according almost 100,000 euros in compensation to 18 (ex-) convicts - instead of the much lower symbolic sums that it normally accords to successful plaintiffs. Relatively speaking, one can still congratulate Romania. For one thing, Romanian prisoners may take their cases before the ECHR whose jurisdiction only covers the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. A second difference that lifts Romania above the possibilities of most other countries is the state's membership in the European Union. Also thanks to the EU's custom to help its member countries absorb EU funds in priority areas (such as criminal justice reform in Romania), Romania will will create more than 10,000 new places for prisoners, will construct two new prisons for 1000 inmates each, and will modernise more than 1,500 places in local penitentiaries, planning to spend more than 800 million euros over the coming years.
-Relatively speaking, one can still congratulate Romania. For one thing, Romanian prisoners may take their cases before the ECHR whose jurisdiction only covers the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. A second difference that lifts Romania above the possibilities of most other countries is the state's membership in the European Union. Also thanks to the EU's custom to help its member countries absorb EU funds in priority areas (such as criminal justice reform in Romania), Romania will will create more than 10,000 new places for prisoners, will construct two new prisons for 1000 inmates each, and will modernise more than 1,500 places in local penitentiaries, planning to spend more than 800 million euros over the coming years.
-While the government spends 500 euros a month per inmate (most of which go into prison staff salaries), living conditions of prisoners remain unsatisfactory. Inmates suffer suffer from lack of sanitary facilities, natural lighting and ventilation, not to mention acceptable food. With the legally guaranteed space of four square meters per prisoner is still an unfulfilled promise - and with two square meters being closer to reality - in July 2016, some 500 inmates in 19 Romanian prisons protested against the usual ills of overcrowding, inadequate medical attention and poor diet. Some were refusing food, rattling bars, hitting windows with bottles, setting light to clothes and shouting “Down with the government!” (Chiriac 2016).
-Consider the attitude of prisoners towards their government in a very poor country like Kenia (rank 145). Kenia does not have the resources to run a complex prison system. The system there looks like it does in all countries with similar socio-economic conditions. It suffers from deprivation, corruption, violence, and the spread of infectious diseases. Many inmates do not leave the prison alive. In 2004, there were five prisoners found dead in Meru prison in central Kenia - in one single cell the size of a single bed:
-:“Seven other prisoners were also in the cell. At first it was thought the dead men had suffocated, but a post-mortem showed that they had been beaten to death. Reports said that they had refused to enter the cell because it was overcrowded, so the prison guards beat them up. The cell measured one by two metres. When they got into it they were attacked by the prisoners already in there. It was alleged that when the investigation started the prison staff tried to stop the chief government pathologist from conducting autopsies. The dead prisoners were not dangerous prisoners. Three of them were being held whilst awaiting trial after being accused of illegally brewing alcohol. The two others were serving sentences of just three months” (Stern 2006, p.1).
-Compared with Kenia, Russia's prison system with its roughly 850,000 inmates might be in a significantly better shape altogether. Here, though, infectious diseases can easily turn a prison sentence into a death sentence. 90 per cent of all prisoners have at least one illness, not seldom a contagious one. In Russia's general population, the year 2009 registered 117,227 new infections with tuberculosis (82.6 cases per 100,000 inhabitants as compared with 5.5 in Germany). One third of all new infections were diagnosed in Russia's prison system. The prison is the place where many inmates catch their infection in the first place - and it is the place where a normal TB infection can turn into a multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), also known as Vank's disease. Prisons function as a kind of involuntary laboratory for the development of bacteria that are resistant to treatment with at least two of the most powerful first-line anti-TB drugs, isoniazid (INH) and rifampicin (RMP). Effective drugs for a single treatment cost up to 10,000 US dollars, compared with dozens or hundreds of dollars for a regular TB. While mortality of TB is on the retreat in Russia, the greater threat of MDR-TB is on the rise (Esch 2010).
-The Moscow Helsinki Group had already warned in 2002 that
-:"Russia’s prisons provide ideal conditions for the spread of TB, and act as a reservoir for the disease in Russian society. The impact of this fatal infectious disease is exacerbated by the spread of drug-resistant forms of TB and the dramatic increase in the number of HIV-infected people in Russia. The Russian authorities should undertake measures of prison reform as an urgent public health measure. This includes a dramatic improvement in prison conditions and a sharp reduction in the rate of imprisonment through recourse to non-custodial forms of punishment wherever possible" (MHG 2002).
-Because of overcrowding, unsafe water supplies, bad food, lack of medical assistance and hygiene (for women's prisons cf. Bozelko 2015), prisoners around the world and people who were formerly incarcerated have a higher burden of HIV, TB, MDR-TB and other infectious diseases than the general population. And from prison these infections are spreading into the general population, thereby worsening the general health situation of whole countries, if not continents (Beachum 2016). If the United Nations' attempt to reach its much-publicized millenium goals pertaining to the containment of infectious diseases by 2015 failed not least because of the world's prison systems' contribution to the quanitative and qualitative complication of global health.
 === A Violent System ===