Police violence on the rise in France
Back to questions of police violence for this post, after a long period devolved to questions of end of life. This post takes up the occasion of the publication of the 2004 report of the French National Commission for the Deontology of Security (NCDS). I gave you the link to the integral version of the report but it is in French, in PDF version, and it takes about 3 MB to download.
In short, the NCDS noticed an increase in the levels of police violence towards citizen, mostly on simple occasions such as id controls, routine check-ups and so on. The NCDS also seemed to come across a phenomenon whichis already noticed in the litterature on police violence: the fact that in French suburbs (which are characterized by a strong criminality and a strong immigrant population), police tend to behave as rival gangs would do, and as though they were a militia in conquered territory.
That is actually a phenomenon well known in areas where the police consider that they are acting in hostile terrain. Litterature has shown such a behaviour to be chronical when the police are conscious that they do not enjoy popular support.
What is new in this report, is that the NCDS ascribes the problems in the behaviour of the policemen to their insufficient training. Until recently, it was generally considered that these problems of violence were often connected to hard-boiled old veteran policemen with a special problem of alcoholism.
It seems now that the training is also insufficient for the younger policemen... Now, we may also notice that police is a necessary and very useful profession. There are a number of members of the police who enter it, not because they wish to oppress citizens, but because they wish to be useful to the population. The greater problem I can see with violence is the passivity of other policemen when their colleagues get into a fit.
More broadly on the subject of police violence, there is an interesting review of a book on police violence in Canada available over here: http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:6MQ3KEkf6NYJ:www.vathek.com/ijpsm/pdf/jpsm.4.4.361.pdf+police+violence+studies&hl=fr
In short, the NCDS noticed an increase in the levels of police violence towards citizen, mostly on simple occasions such as id controls, routine check-ups and so on. The NCDS also seemed to come across a phenomenon whichis already noticed in the litterature on police violence: the fact that in French suburbs (which are characterized by a strong criminality and a strong immigrant population), police tend to behave as rival gangs would do, and as though they were a militia in conquered territory.
That is actually a phenomenon well known in areas where the police consider that they are acting in hostile terrain. Litterature has shown such a behaviour to be chronical when the police are conscious that they do not enjoy popular support.
What is new in this report, is that the NCDS ascribes the problems in the behaviour of the policemen to their insufficient training. Until recently, it was generally considered that these problems of violence were often connected to hard-boiled old veteran policemen with a special problem of alcoholism.
It seems now that the training is also insufficient for the younger policemen... Now, we may also notice that police is a necessary and very useful profession. There are a number of members of the police who enter it, not because they wish to oppress citizens, but because they wish to be useful to the population. The greater problem I can see with violence is the passivity of other policemen when their colleagues get into a fit.
More broadly on the subject of police violence, there is an interesting review of a book on police violence in Canada available over here: http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:6MQ3KEkf6NYJ:www.vathek.com/ijpsm/pdf/jpsm.4.4.361.pdf+police+violence+studies&hl=fr
posted by dawnofeurope | 1:59 pm
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