Until they are generalized for all police officers this summer, pedestrian cameras will be tested from today in prison.

The objective: to reduce the number of violent incidents while last year, more than 4,200 assaults on supervisors were recorded.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced Monday the generalization of pedestrian cameras equipping the police "for July 1, 2021".

This new prototype will first be tested in around thirty prisons where several hundred prison supervisors will be equipped in order to reduce the numerous attacks to which they are victims.

No less than 4,200 were identified in 2019 alone.

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Supervisors will be able to trigger the camera themselves during an extraction or on a risky intervention.

They will warn the inmate that everything that happens is recorded, a good way to defuse tensions as shown by tests already carried out in nine prisons, all with success.

"Now, in addition to the images we have the sound"

"Very quickly, the agents noticed that this had a positive effect. First, it calmed things down, the detainees were quieter verbally," said Emmanuel Baudin, secretary general of the SNP Focre Ouvrière.

“With these new cameras, in addition to the image we have sound, not like the other cameras that were currently placed in the corridors. Before, the judge did not understand because the inmates appeared calm in the images. at the time we had had this kind of tool we would have shown that the detainee had refused complied with insults and threats. "

Experienced until February 2022 before generalization?

Another piece of equipment for prison guards who hope for more, such as pulse guns or stun bombs.

In the meantime, the 600 pedestrian cameras are being tested until February 2022, before their possible generalization.

As a reminder, on July 14, President Emmanuel Macron announced his desire to generalize pedestrian cameras "before the end of the five-year term", in order to "retrace the truth of the facts which make it possible to protect, to restore (the) confidence ".