Some sentence adjustment projects or temporary releases can be frozen for several months or even more than a year, pending a psychiatric assessment. In particular, a significant increase in the number of requests over the past twenty years, coupled with a decline in the number of experts available. Cet article published by the International Observatory of Prisons illustrates the continuous increase in requests for expertise faced with the drop in the number of expert psychiatrists.
“A week before the hearing before the sentence enforcement court, my client learned that the latter was postponed to a later date because the expert gave no sign of life. She showed up 48 hours before the hearing on Friday, made her assessment in a few minutes and produced her writings during the weekend, but it was too late, the dismissal had already been pronounced. My client was in tears. This experience recounted by Me Juliette Chapelle, lawyer at the Paris Bar, is no exception. For convicted persons, the wait to obtain a psychiatric expertise, whether to prepare a sentence adjustment or request a temporary absence, can be counted in months, sometimes in years, and hearings are regularly adjourned for lack of a response from the prisoner. ‘expert. At the Bapaume detention center, for example, a single expert intervenes for more than 500 detainees. “It is so much in demand that the expertise takes up to a year to come back to us. It is a disaster “, exclaims the sentence enforcement judge (Jap) who intervenes in the establishment. Same problem in Maubeuge. If certain territories, such as the North or the overseas territories, are more severely affected, all the professionals stress the importance of these delays everywhere in France. With, as a result, permission to go out refused, canceled hearings, professional or housing projects that fall into the water. At the origin of this situation and these delays, a scissor effect: requests for psychiatric expertise have risen sharply over the past twenty years, and an equally constant decrease in the number of experts available.
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