Prison work: the companies making a move towards rehabilitation

Publication: La Croix·Published: 13 June 2021·Journalists: Nicolas Senèze and Emmanuelle Réju

Keen to expand work opportunities in prisons, the Ministry of Justice has launched the PePs label to recognise companies that have chosen to open a door to rehabilitation for prisoners.

This La Croix article gives a voice to several companies involved in prison work. Pierre Guillet describes setting up a gas detector manufacturing workshop at Poissy prison, teaching the skills involved, and the impact of this initiative on Hesion’s employees.

Hesion and passing on skills — excerpts from the article

As head of Hesion, which manufactures gas detectors for industry, Pierre Guillet opened a workshop in the same prison employing two prisoners. Their wages allow them to support their families, improve their daily lives and also reimburse the state for the compensation it paid to victims on their behalf.

« It was a little complicated at first », Pierre Guillet admits. He first had to convince some of his own employees, then faced a lack of training among the new workers. « At the start, the quality was not there, he acknowledges. We had to teach them the trade, and gradually they improved. » So much so that he can now entrust them with manufacturing an entire gas leak detection control unit, something the two men do « with a certain pride », the entrepreneur says.

A momentum for change

« Realising that we could act on more than purely financial considerations was a catalyst that brought the company together », observes Pierre Guillet. To recognise the progress of his two prison-based employees, he raised their pay above the minimum required by the PePs label. He is now preparing to welcome a former prisoner who has just applied for an adjustment to his sentence to work on the company’s own premises. « Not all employees may be fully on board yet, but I can feel a momentum for change. »

The circumstances described in these excerpts reflect the situation at the time of publication, in June 2021.