Chapter II: Enforcement of custodial sentences

The penalty for one day’s imprisonment is twenty-four hours. That of one month is thirty days. A sentence of more than one month is calculated from day to day.

The duration of any custodial sentence is counted from the day on which the convicted person is detained by virtue of a final sentence.

A convict whose imprisonment is due to end on a legal holiday or Sunday will be released on the previous working day.

In order to enforce a sentence of imprisonment or confinement, the public prosecutor and the public prosecutor may authorise law enforcement officers to enter the home of the convicted person in order to seize the person. However, the officers may not enter the person’s home before 6am and after 9pm. Any person arrested by virtue of an extract from a judgment or decree sentencing them to a term of imprisonment…

Within one year of their final conviction, persons sentenced to a term of criminal imprisonment of fifteen years or more for one of the offences referred to in Article 706-53-13 is placed, for a period of at least six weeks, in a specialised service to determine the arrangements for social and health care during the execution of his sentence. On the basis of this assessment, the sentence enforcement judge will…

Under conditions laid down by decree in the Conseil d’Etat, persons convicted of an offence for which socio-judicial supervision is incurred serve their sentence in prison establishments that provide appropriate medical and psychological monitoring. Without prejudice to the provisions of article 763-7, the sentence enforcement judge may propose that any convicted person covered by the provisions of the previous paragraph undergo treatment while in detention, if a doctor considers that…

The sentence enforcement judge gives his opinion, except in emergencies, on the transfer of convicts from one establishment to another.

Work activities and vocational or general training are taken into account when assessing the serious efforts to reintegrate convicted persons and their good conduct. Within prison establishments, prisoners who so request may engage in work activities or receive vocational or general training or validation of prior experience, under the conditions laid down by the provisions of the Prison Code.

Members of Parliament, senators, representatives to the European Parliament elected in France, bar presidents in their jurisdiction or their specially appointed delegate within the Bar Council are authorised to visit police custody facilities, customs detention facilities as defined in article 323-1 of the Customs Code, places of administrative detention, waiting areas, prisons and closed educational centres mentioned in the article L. 113-7 of the juvenile criminal justice code. Except for…