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28 March 2012
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France
Ministry
of Interior unveils "hotspot" policy to tackle "rooted
delinquency"
15.8.12
In a note released on 30 July 2012, the French Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced the launch of a new security policy targeting newly identified "priority security areas" (Zone prioritaires de sécurité, ZPS). [1] The project will be launched in 15 pilot cities in September 2012.
Areas characterised by "structural"
delinquency
The identification of the first 15 ZPSs results from a detailed
mapping of delinquency hotspots by the General Directorate of
the national police force, and the General Directorate of the
gendarmerie. This identification was done "unusually at
a central [i.e. national] level: local gendarmerie and police
forces, together with local authorities and stakeholders, will
then be involved in the identification of 40 to 60 new areas
by the summer of 2013.
The aim is to provide "appropriate answers to local issues
… in territories where delinquency and anti-social acts
are structurally rooted". Objectives in each ZPS are to
be limited in numbers (two to three) to "avoid any resource
dispersal". A non-exhaustive list details the acts the new
strategy should endeavour to tackle: "the shadow economy,
drugs and arms trafficking, acquisitive crime, burglary, gatherings
in common areas of residential buildings, misbehaviour on the
public highway (nuisance), and other uncivil acts".
Two units will be established to ensure operational coordination
among interior security forces (reaction capacity) and among
the strategy's "partners" (prevention strategy) which
may include actors not affiliated to the Ministry of Interior,
such as the judiciary, schools and social services.
The promotion of a new security policy under a new government
This is the first official document about delinquency and security
since the appointment of the Socialist government in May 2012.
The note is often critical of the previous strategy adopted by
the different governments under Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency:
Valls promotes a strategy "beyond raids [operations coups
de poing] or spectacular initiatives" considered as being
"modi operandi with no strategy … which prove inefficient
in the long term". Moreover, it was announced that the new
security strategy will not be evaluated and monitored on the
basis of "quantitative criteria" such as the "figures-based"
policy of the precedent administrations. [2]
Coordination among the police, the gendarmerie and the judiciary,
but also between several ministries (urban and social development,
justice) is promoted so as to address the structural causes of
insecurity in both rural and urban areas.
In 2003, Sarkozy, then Interior Minister, had withdrawn police
forces from "sensitive areas", i.e. ghettoised suburban
areas, as he argued that police officers were not paid "for
playing football with youngsters". [3] This decision resulted
in limiting the role of the police force to a sanctioning body
when officers were deployed in reaction to criminal acts. About
12,000 police jobs were lost between 2007 and 2012. [4]
The 2011 LOPPSI law (Loi de Programmation pour la Performance
de la Sécurité Intérieure, Orientation and
Planning law for the Performance of Interior Security) re-established
the role of the police in sensitive urban areas without, however
, re-establishing the initial link between the local police force
and other institutions (social services, judiciary, town hall,
health services).
The emphasis on coordination, as well as on the independence
on the Judiciary, including during judicial investigation in
criminal affairs, further juxtaposes the new security strategy
in opposition to the heavily criticised intrusion of the Executive
in judicial affairs under the former government. [5]
Criticism
Although the new programme aims to promote a more coherent approach
to security, Valls' strategy is inspired by the concept of "territorial
competence mapping" which was developed in the 2010-2011
White Paper on Public Security. [6] The White Paper was commissioned
by the Interior Ministry and written by Michel Gaudin, the Paris
Police Prefect, and Alain Bauer, a criminologist who is the President
of the National Observatory on Delinquency and Penal Sanctions
established by Sarkozy in 2003. Bauer, a former advisor to Sarkozy
and known to be close to Valls, praised the adoption of a "more
pragmatic approach" in line with the "hot spot"
strategy adopted in the 1990s in Canada and the United-States
(where resources are allocated to specific prioritised areas).
[7]
However, several aspects in the Valls plan have been criticised.
First, this ambitious plan will not be accompanied by the necessary
resources: the time necessary to train new staff makes it impossible
for the Ministry to facilitate the implementation of the new
strategy. Only 1,000 new public officers will be deployed for
the first phase of the project with some of them being employed
at the Ministry of Justice.
This technical element has been criticised by the police trade-union
Alliance which expressed its concern at the absence of a concerted
approach involving representatives of the police and gendarmerie
forces and the lack of information regarding the reasons for
the identification of the ZSPs or the means to be allocated for
the implementation of the strategy.
This new security plan thus seems to have prioritised the political
benefits of the post-electoral period (whereby public opinion
remains largely favourable to the government) over feasibility:
the note not only shows the government to be pro-active in implementing
the new President's pledges (ZSPs were part of his manifesto),
but the new Interior Minister has gained growing popularity among
the French population [9], an element which will facilitate the
accomplishment of a new security strategy.
Sources
[1] French Ministry of Interior, Circulaire
relative à la mise en oeuvre des zones prioritaires de
sécurité, 30 July 2012
[2] 'La
note à l'origine de la politique du chiffre',
OWNI, 5 October 2011
[3] 'Sarkozy,
le président qui change d'avis', L'Express, 24
November 2011
[4] 'Francois
Hollande oublie les gendarmes', OWNI, 10 April 2012
[5]
Lettre ouverte à Nicolas Sarkozy sur l'état de
la justice après Nicolas Sarkozy, Syndicat de
la Magistrature, 2 May 2012
[6] Bauer and Gaudin (2012)
Livre Blanc sur la Sécurité Publique, Rapport au
ministre de l'Intérieur, de l'Outre-Mer, des Collectivités
territoriales et de l'Immigration
[7] 'Sécurité
: la liste des villes que l'Etat veut sécuriser',
Le Parisien, 4 August 2012
[8] Zones
de Sécurité Prioritaires: pas de concertation,
ALLIANCE, 6 August 2012
[9] TNS Sofres (2012) Cote
de popularité des personnalités politiques
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