Police angry after "light" sentence for wild rodeo

In Strasbourg, the police during an “anti-rodeo” operation on October 16, 2019. -

• Three young people were sentenced to a road safety awareness course after wild rodeos in Strasbourg.

• Police officers regret the "lightness" of this sanction after a long investigation and want reflections on the effectiveness of sentences to be carried out.

• Justice emphasizes the personalization of sentences and the importance of working on recidivism.

While wild two-wheeled rodeos are multiplying everywhere in France, always mobilizing a little more already overloaded law enforcement, a court decision rendered last week in Strasbourg is talking in police stations.

And at the same time gives rise to comments on the Internet that are sometimes not very laudatory for justice.

As a reminder, after a long investigation, three young authors of wild rodeos in Strasbourg had received a road safety awareness course.

An "insufficient", "humiliating", "light", "demotivating" sentence can be heard from the police.

"It is a court decision, we respect them, but we wonder," says

William Wulleman, Deputy Regional Secretary Grand-Est Alliance police nationale.

But what the police union wants above all is "a real moratorium" on the subject of sentences, their effectiveness.

"We are not in a logic at all prison, explains William Wulleman, but we simply want to have a real reflection because we see, on a daily basis, that the sentences are misunderstood, both by the perpetrators, the victims, the police men.

The message is no longer understood in the face of a delinquency which has considerably rejuvenated, continues the police officer, with a rise in violence.

Court decisions are sometimes as many swords in the water and ultimately everyone loses.

He also fears "the gaps that may be encountered, the misunderstandings between the various links in the judicial chain", and insists on the need to review these.

Customization of sentences

Would justice be too kind?

"We do not issue penalties to please police unions, we pronounce penalties according to the seriousness of the offense and the personality of the perpetrator, slice Philippe Schneider, representative of the Union of the judiciary.

Without wanting to comment on any court decision, he recalls that a probationary sentence is a sentence provided for by law, instead of imprisonment, an alternative to prison, at the expense of convicts.

Personalized penalties.

Same opinion for the judge for children Isabelle Speziari, regional delegate of the Union syndicale des magistrats and judge for children in Strasbourg.

If she understands that certain penalties can move the population, she recalls that we cannot judge the height of the investigation and the means deployed, but that the penalty is proportional to the offense, depending on the case. .

“We can hear in the population that if there is no prison sentence, there is no conviction.

The short cut is made when the justice does not seem severe enough and again, it depends on the length of the sentence…, she explains.

Sentenced to an internship, it is not to be released, and even less to deny the problems or the consequent and serious work of the police and the justice system.

These courses set up by the legislator are there to work on recidivism.

If this mission is accomplished in this way, so much the better, the company wins.

"

Society

Strasbourg: We followed an anti-rodeo operation with the police (and it ended in a cellar)

Miscellaneous

Perpignan: Police disperse hundreds of drivers suspected of engaging in wild rodeos

• Strasbourg

• Police

• Delinquency

• Justice

• Violence

• Scooter

• Motorbike