The first France Services house for people in custody, located in a prison probation and integration service (SPIP), was inaugurated on Friday in La Rochette (Seine-et-Marne). “If those who are seeking reintegration are not offered the opportunity to access the full range of public services, we run the risk of seeing them drop out and possibly reoffend”declared Pierre Ory, prefect of Seine-et-Marne, at the inauguration of this 35th France services branch of the department.
In France, more than 2,800 France Services contact points – which bring together several public services – fixed or mobile – in one place, are deployed. “We already have France services on a canoe in Guyana (…) But France services dedicated to a public under the jurisdiction of justice, this is the first time”recalled Philippe Deborde, deputy director of the France Services program at the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion. This idea germinated a year and a half ago in Seine-et-Marne.
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The department's three SPIP sites – which support 4,300 people in an open environment – are concerned: Meaux, Fontainebleau and La Rochette, a few steps from the Melun judicial court. In these premises, two offices are now dedicated to France services and a mediator has been recruited by the PIMMS mediation 77 association. Prison integration and probation counselors have also volunteered to be trained and carry out these missions.
There will be welcomed those leaving prison, people in sentence adjustment (semi-liberty, conditional release, electronic monitoring), those on probation and those carrying out community service. “These are audiences who often have a very low resistance threshold to frustration”explains Franck Sassier, director of SPIP 77. “When we direct them towards public services, it can be very complicated. Either they're not going to go because they don't dare, they're afraid. Either they go but it will go badly because we will tell them 'you don't have the right documents'…”
With the one-stop shop which allows access to a range of public services, from CAF to CPAM, including taxes and France Travail, “this will make it possible to initiate this support, the connection to social rights, to create trust and to combat the digital divide”rejoices Franck Sassier. “Like any experiment, this will have to be evaluated, to see to what extent this system will be able to feed other territories”noted Sébastien Cauwel, director of the Prison Administration, assuring that it would be “very attentive to developments”.
