In Hungary, incarcerated people are particularly afraid of special intervention units. Created in 1996, these units step in when situations are deemed high-risk. Helmeted, masked and armed with batons, these “men in black” terrorise incarcerated people, explains Janos, who was imprisoned for three years on Marko street in central Budapest. “When our organisation could still visit the prisons, the mentions of abuse committed by these units were frequent”, notes the lawyer Gabor Gyozo. Evidence of violence then became practically impossible to gather in 2017, when Viktor Orban’s far-right government suspended its agreements with the NGO.

In Romania, masked intervention units called “the mascati” appeared in the 1990s. Their operations became more strictly regulated around 2010-2011. “Fifteen years ago, they acted without any limitations. They struck so hard they damaged incarcerated people’s livers. We saw them and we heard shouting”, discloses Andrei, a Romanian man in his forties who spent 22 years behind bars. Alexandru, who was held prisoner from 1989 to 2002, adds: “A staff sergeant struck me with an iron bar while I was sleeping. The bed bore witness to my agony.”

In France, the regional and local security teams – which were created in 2003 and 2017, respectively, after riots – are regularly criticised. “One incarcerated individual recently told us that they were forcefully undressed, violently searched and kept naked, and flattened to the ground by these units”, reports the lawyer Vincent Scuderoni, president of the lawyers’ association for defending incarcerated people’s rights (Association des avocats pour la défense des droits des détenus, A3D).

In France, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, each death in prison systematically results in a procedure being opened to “determine the cause of death”. “All bodies are autopsied within 24 hours – at least, that’s the rule in Montpellier”, says Éric Baccino, a professor of forensic medicine. “Disciplinary committees investigate any misconduct by the guards”, assures the Romanian prison service, mentioning that two prison guards were sanctioned this year following internal procedures.

Unlike most European countries, where criminal matters in prison are investigated by the civil justice system, in Hungary, some investigations pertaining to prison staff are carried out by military prosecutors. “Legal mechanisms exist, but since no one wants to be held responsible for a tragedy, some members of prison staff may be tempted to conceal the facts rather than face the consequences”, admits a former prison service official who wished to remain anonymous.

The French lawyer Antoine Ory criticises sluggish investigations and the lack of transparency: “We feel as though we’re fighting mountains, and more often than not, we face reluctance from the judicial authority.” In 2022, the relatives of Alassane Sangaré, who was found dead in Fleury-Mérogis three years prior, filed charges for “aggravated, wilful violence leading to unintentional death”. Djeneba Sangaré, 42 years old, is convinced that her brother was badly beaten by guards. She has had to fight to obtain any little scrap of information: “In January 2023, in the absence of a response, we had to go directly to the forensic medicine institute to collect the autopsy file.” And in three years, nothing has changed: “There has still not been any response from the people in charge of the investigation.” Laurence Delleur, a journalist and the director of the documentary Lockdown, a blind spot (Mitard, l’angle mort), says: “Most of the time, it doesn’t even go to trial. The families are helpless and unaware of their rights.”

In France, the group “The Deceased in Prison” (Les Morts de la Prison), created in 2006, keeps track of and draws attention to these deaths that often “fly under the radar”, notes its founder, the former prison nurse Roch-Étienne Noto. “What is troubling is the recurring pattern that follows these incidents: a brief public reaction, followed by institutional silence”, comments the Duduianu family’s lawyer, Violeta Podolianu, with irritation.

In the hushed stillness of his office in the heart of Bucharest, Adrian Neagoe, the vice president of the primary Romanian penitentiary union, shrugs his shoulders: “The investigation, piecing together the facts, understanding what the cameras show… That takes time!”

The family of Constantin Sandu, who died at 36 years old at the hands of several officers at Galati Prison, not far from the border with Moldova, had to wait three years for the investigation to wrap up. In June 2013, six of the 13 officers charged were sentenced to four to eight years in prison for “accessory to murder”, “ill-treatment” and “forgery”; the others received suspended sentences or fines.

In Hungary in 2023, one incarcerated person reportedly suffered ill-treatment in his cell while the corridor was filmed by two security cameras. His lawyer Gabor Gyozo believed this was a stroke of luck – until he obtained the footage: “Several seconds were missing from the recordings. An expert concluded that it had been tampered with.” In France, there is no established minimum time that recordings must be kept. “And when we manage to recover them, we often receive a video excerpt showing just the discovery of the body, which does not enable us to observe the events that transpired beforehand”, explains the lawyer Vincent Scuderoni. According to several sources, surveillance officers could also attempt to protect themselves by disabling the cameras, erasing surveillance footage or establishing a corroborative depiction of events to impose a single narrative.

In Romania, Andrei, who was incarcerated from 2002 to 2024, believes that beatings have become less frequent “thanks to the installation of cameras”. Ioan Durnescu, a criminologist and professor at the University of Bucharest, adds that in 2024, “10% of the personnel in direct contact with incarcerated individuals received training on incident management”.

In Sopronkohida, near the Austrian border, it was thanks to surveillance footage and the legal assistance of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee that one incarcerated person was able to obtain justice after being severely beaten and assaulted by an officer. Alongside the recognition of his victim status, he received one million forints (2,600 euros) in damages as well as formal apologies. But Lili Kramer, a Hungarian sociologist and criminologist at the HHC, insists: “Without the images, it would have been difficult to establish the facts. Especially since the culture of fear is so widespread among incarcerated people, who feel intense pressure to remain silent.”

Gaspar, 55 years old, was held for six months in Vác, north of Budapest, and did not dare to file a complaint against a guard who he says beat him until after his release in 2021. “I was afraid of retaliation. I saw how they treated people who complained: transferring them to dangerous cells, tightening controls, taking away rights.” A few months after being released from prison, the fifty-something man saw his complaint dismissed. In April, the sisters of Alassane Sangaré, who was found dead in Fleury-Mérogis (France), took their message to the international stage by bringing the issue of these prison tragedies to the headquarters of the UN, where they appealed for more “justice”.