“The Goncourt prize for detainees will help reduce violence”

Fifteen books selected by the Académie Goncourt will be offered for deliberation by detainees. “This initiative brings together two worlds wrongly considered as distant, that of literary creation and that of the prison universe.“, congratulated AFP Roselyne Bachelot, at the launch of the Goncourt prize for detaineeslast March, pointing to “the intimate bond“between some”masterpieces of literature and the drama of detention“.

With the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, the former Minister of Culture signed this new protocol on March 14 to reaffirm the role of culture in the reintegration system for prisoners. “Culture is a vector of personal enhancement, of school, professional and social integration. It can be considered as an element that gives meaning to the sentence from a recidivism prevention perspective.“, estimated for his part Éric Dupond-Moretti.

“More and more reading in prison”

Rima Abdul Malakthe new Minister of Culture, has taken up the torch of this project, also convinced that “it will help to reduce violence and then improve professional integration for those who will be released from prison“, she said at the microphone of Philippe Vandel on European 1 Monday morning. “We will be able to have a literary prize which will be chosen by the prisoners. And so, we are going to do more and more readings in prison, meetings with authors“, she clarified.

Fifteen works selected by the Académie Goncourt will thus be offered for deliberation by detainees. The National Book Center, which has declared reading a “great national cause”, in 2022, will finance “the purchase of books” and will also ensure their delivery to detention centers, can we read in a press release from the institution. The national deliberations involve some thirty penitentiary centers and the first presentation of the Goncourt prize for detainees will be held at the CNL on December 15.