French Prison Gates Open for Would-Be Officers

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By Reuters

Published: 05/23/2003

France is launching a TV recruitment drive for 10,000 new workers for its prisons, one of the few vibrant sectors in its economy, featuring two prison officers sharing their love of the job.
Two commercials will hit television screens this week with the slogan 'Prison is changing, change it with us.'
One of the men says, 'What does it mean to be a guard? Just opening or closing the gates? No, for me it goes far beyond that,' one of the men says.
'It is also knowing how to listen, understand, anticipate. It's a job full of life and that's what I like.'
French prisons, with 56,000 inmates, are overpopulated and mutinies, suicides and other violent incidents have become more frequent in recent months.
France has 56,000 prison inmates out and an overall population of 60 million people, compared with about 2 million in prisons and jails in the United States, with a population of 280 million.
The recruitment drive aims to replace 6,000 prison staff due to retire over the next five years and create 3,740 new posts. France also plans to build 30 new prisons by 2007, at a cost of $1.53 billion.
French unemployment was running at 9.1 percent in January and economists see the headline figure reaching 9.5 percent by mid-year.

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