• In an interview with

    L'Express

    , the Minister of the Interior revealed that he preferred to rely on "the good sense of the butcher of Tourcoing" to assess delinquency, rather than on "victimization surveys".

  • Questioned by

    20 Minutes

    , several butchers in this northern city have the feeling that delinquency is increasing and that the justice system does not punish the perpetrators severely enough.

  • However, the various works carried out by delinquency specialists prove them wrong.

Fire up studies, statistics and other scientific analyzes!

To hell with reason, make way for emotion.

If he "likes victimization surveys and media experts", the Minister of the Interior "prefers" to rely, to assess delinquency, on "the good sense of the butcher butcher of Tourcoing," he said. he confessed without complex in an interview with

L'Express

. Like Donald Trump in the United States, Gérald Darmanin prefers to ignore the work of researchers and specialists and develop his political line according to the expectations of the French - who place security as a priority of their concerns for the presidential election of 2022. “It's quite disarming and worrying,” Judge Mathieu Zagrodzki, researcher associated with Cesdip (Center for Sociological Research on Law and Criminal Institutions), a laboratory attached to the CNRS. “This means that we base public policies solely on postures and intuitions, feelings. "

Exactly, what do they feel then, the butchers of Tourcoing, a city in the North where Gérald Darmanin has been elected mayor twice?

“I've been working here for 33 years and I've never had a problem.

Never, ”explains one of them, François Hoornaert, at

20 Minutes

.

This does not prevent him from thinking that there is a lot of delinquency in France.

“When you see the poor cops getting killed, the kids, it gets worrying.

It is society that is like that, young people are more and more violent.

When we were kids, we were afraid of the police.

Now they are no longer afraid of it.

But they are not punished enough, that is clear.

And since they are minors, they just have reminders of the law and basta.

"

"To prevent it from gangrene everywhere"

Alexandre Fromeau, another craftsman in the city, occasionally receives the Minister of the Interior when he does his shopping. “We talk about something else, but it's true that sometimes, we can send him messages, that's for sure. But it's still a customer for us. "Delinquency," there is everywhere in France ", and even" more than before ", he believes. But according to him, delinquency is "sectorized", that is to say confined to certain neighborhoods. “It must be a daily fight to prevent it from gangrene everywhere. "

“We are not yet like in Chicago, as some say.

But that's my personal opinion, I don't know if I have the right look, ”explains another professional, preferring to remain anonymous.

He too has already crossed paths with the first cop in France, who came to greet him "during an election period".

“Otherwise, we don't have affinity, we won't drink coffee together.

"

Aged 61, he does not feel "more attacked than another".

But he believes that there is too much “laxity” and that justice must be “more severe in the penalties”.

“All the young people we hung out with, we would never have dared turn on a cop.

Yet we did not have them in our hearts, that's clear.

But we weren't armed.

Now a 14 or 15 year old kid is going to stab a 17 year old girl, ”he says.

"There is no real explosion"

An increasing delinquency, ever younger authors, overly lenient judges… Here is the feeling of the butchers of Tourcoing.

But in fact, are they right?

“On the two indicators that are homicides and intentional violence, there is no real explosion, there is even rather a drop in homicides over the last 25 years.

What is increasing is everything related to insults and threats, ”observes Mathieu Zagrodzki.

In addition, according to data from the Ministry of Justice compiled by INSEE, judges are increasingly handing down prison sentences.

Even if, due to the health crisis, the number of detainees fell between 2019 and 2020, it has continued to increase in recent years and still remains, in 2020, at a very high level, according to figures from the 'penitentiary Administration.

Finally, concerning juvenile delinquency, the Minister of Justice himself admitted last September that it "has not increased in our country for ten years".

Éric Dupond-Moretti: "The figures are clear, juvenile delinquency has not increased in our country for 10 years" pic.twitter.com/Um8Co5nlhc

- BFMTV (@BFMTV) September 2, 2020

The feeling is important, but ...

Mathieu Zagrodzki underlines: “Listening to how people feel is important, it's even quite healthy.

But when we speak of an increase or decrease in delinquency, we are not on debates, philosophical rantings around the potentially muddy concept.

It is based on figures and statistical studies covering tens of thousands of people.

"

Christophe Soullez, who headed the ONDRP (National Observatory on Delinquency and Criminal Responses) between 2004 and the end of 2020, makes the same observation.

“I don't think you can make public policy just by listening to what people can say.

It is necessary to be based on reliable, exhaustive, qualitative data, making it possible to support the observations ”, he recalls.

"Take an interest in other types of offenses"

Five months ago, the government decided to abolish the ONDRP.

After reflection, it is finally envisaged to recreate an observatory of the penal response, but which "will mainly relate to attacks on the internal security forces where the ONDRP concerned the penal response in the broad sense", Matignon informed

Liberation.

.

“Why create a structure only on this field?

It can also be useful to take an interest in other types of offenses ", underlines Christophe Soullez, adding that" it is thanks to the victimization surveys [carried out by the ONDRP] that we have been able to document widely. the phenomenon of domestic violence and that measures have been taken ”.

A subject on which the butchers of Tourcoing do not necessarily have an opinion.

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  • Delicatessen

  • Society

  • study

  • Statistics

  • Butcher's shop

  • Gerald Darmanin

  • Delinquency

  • Tourcoing