France: Police brutality escapes punishment
01 November 2004
Study finds a “strong over-representation” of “visible minorities” among victims of police violence and in the context of identity checks
A "national commission on the relationship between citizens and members of the security forces, and on the control and treatment of this relationship by the judiciary", called "Citizens Justice Police" (CJP) and coordinated by the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme (LDH, the French League for Human Rights), published a report on its first two years of activities. The Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'Amitié entre les Peuples (MRAP, Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples), the Syndicat des Avocats de France (SAF, Union of French Lawyers) and the Syndicat de la Magistrature (SM, Magistrates' Union) are also involved in this commission, which has been active since July 2002.
The report, which does not claim to be exhaustive, is based on a sample of 50 cases in which members of the community filed complaints to the CJP commission about violent incidents involving members of the French security forces (the police and gendarmerie). It is divided into three parts: the first part analyses the circumstances surrounding the violent incidents that have been reported and their investigation; the second focuses on three in-depth investigations carried out by the commission and the third part looks at the work of one of the commission's branches, in Toulouse.
Finally, a number of recommendations are made, calling on magistrates to exercise an effective control over police actions, especially "not to systematically grant complete credibility to the testimonies made by public order services over that of the victims of police violence". Political authorities are asked to reflect on the "culture of results" that is being applied for police services, which has led to an increase in charges filed for offences such as "insulting" or "resisting" officers in the absence of any other offences. Moreover, the commission calls for special training on relations with the community for officers, especially about the risk of discriminatory attitudes, and reminds the police and gendarmerie that any complaints, including those against fellow officers, must be properly filed and investigated, and that support must be offered to the victims. Other aspects that are highlighted include concerns over the practice of "placing the least experienced officers in the most difficult neighbourhoods, particularly at night"; the need for police interventions to be "proportional" to the situations in which they take place; the need for a re-assessment of the legality of pre-emptive identity checks "whose multiplication often gives rise to public order disturbances"; victims must be "effectively" assured of the possibility of recurring against violations of their rights by "members of the security forces"; and the Commission nationale de déontologie de la sécurité (CNDS, National Commission of Deontology in Security) must be allocated sufficient funds to usefully carry out its function, consisting in investigating and evaluating police actions.
An examination of the incidents on which the report is based shows that 58% of the cases relate to instances when one person claimed to have been on the receiving end of police violence, in 22% of cases it was directed at two people and in 20% of cases at groups of more than two people. In over three quarters of the cases the victims were men, the average age of the victims was 31, although minors were involved in two of the cases, and in 60% of the cases the victims were foreigners (French nationals of foreign origins made up a considerable part of the remaining 40%), leading the commission to note that there is a "strong over-representation" of "visible minorities" among the victims of police violence, and that members of "foreign populations or [those] with foreign origins", are stopped more often "in the context of identity checks".
All the cases r