Overcrowded French jails on 'descent to hell'

[dArKeR]

Paris - Packed into old, vermin-ridden cells, often suffering from disease or mental problems, inmates craft makeshift daggers from canteen forks and resort to self-mutilation to pass the time.

One man decapitates his cellmate with a pocket knife. Another dies when his cellmates set fire to a mattress. Rapes are commonplace, and guards too few to prevent them.

Such scenes, related by a prison warden, illustrate the "descent to hell" that a new report says is taking place in France's prisons as the number of inmates soars under the government's vote-winning crackdown on crime.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&art_id=qw1069645503176B216&set_id=1

[xultar]

1. Does Amnesty International know about this? n/t

[Character Assassin]

2. The French have never had a problem with hellish jails

Witness for the prosecution: Devil's Island.