Police harassment: "The confinement has only exacerbated the phenomenon" for young people

A police check in Marseille, France, March 25, 2020. CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP

Text by: Nathanaël Vittrant

6 mins

An investigation by the Bondy Blog and Mediapart shed light on the phenomenon: police harassment, which in certain working-class neighborhoods targets young people, often of immigrant origin.

The phenomenon is accentuated with confinements and health measures and pushes some of these young people, but also sometimes their families in over-indebtedness.

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“ 

Here I have the example of a young person who in 6 or 8 months has received 21 fines

 ”. On the desk of Iheb Souilmi, member of a neighborhood association in Belleville in the popular 20th arrondissement of Paris, a file and photocopies of fines by the hundreds. In total thousands of euros in fines for " 

not wearing a mask

 " or "

 violation of a measure requiring the wearing of a mask

 ". "

 There, on March 2, he received two on the same day,

 " she notes.

In her permanence she sees the young frustrated parade, but also mothers helpless in the face of these fines that they see accumulate day after day.

“ 

I had a mother whose son had fined 550 euros, he had paid a first and then he refused.

Mom, she can't afford, she came back several times in panic, but what can I do? 

"

Accumulation of fines

A phenomenon that has been accentuated with the pandemic and the confinements, but all those we interviewed insist: it precedes the health crisis. " 

We have seen the system rise for two or three years, since the famous daily police force of this government

 ", explains Omer Mas Capitolin of the association Maison communautaire pour un développement solidaire. " 

We are not only talking about a fine for not respecting the curfew or not wearing a mask, you can accumulate fines for nighttime noise at 2 p.m., for

'spillage of unhealthy liquid'

, that means the young person has urinated in the street or spat on the floor, there are tons of them like that.

 "

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In the neighborhood, we have no trouble finding young people concerned.

Like Esdrass, a sporty young man of 28.

“ 

When I am posed with friends around 11:30 pm or midnight, there is generally a team of police officers who come by, they come to ask us for our identity papers, there is a control and a week later we receive a fine.

300 or 350 euros

: it's huge

!

Especially for people who do not work or who earn a minimum wage, it is very complicated.

 "

Especially since these young people are often summoned to the police court and because failure to go there the fine is increased.

Esdrass works for him, but with ten fines in two years and nearly 3,000 euros to pay, every month his salary is taken from one hundred euros by the public treasury.

“

If my salary is going to go into paying fines, why work?

"

Beyond the feeling of injustice that they see growing, Iheb Souilmi and Omer Mas Capitolin are unanimous on the perverse effects of this policy. " 

It pushes them not to work

 ", the first one despairs. “

 They say to themselves 'if my salary is going to go into paying fines, why work?' 

Omer Mas Capitolin goes further. “

 You have young people who are extremely square who are not in the deals and who find themselves overnight with the bailiffs who arrive. So what are they doing

?

They're going to go see the local dealer to find some stuff and get out on the sidewalk to sell.

They talk to us about measures to fight against delinquency, but it is quite the opposite, it is a system that will fuel delinquency since at one point we are pushing our young people to find money to pay these fines. 

Without going that far, the phenomenon encourages others to work illegally or under an assumed name.

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The practice is all the more problematic as it is almost impossible to challenge these fines.

" 

Individual appeals are systematically rejected, 

" confirm Rafaëlle Parlier and the Vox Public association, which have been working for several years on discriminatory police practices.

Nice confined during the coronavirus pandemic, police check, April 8, 2020. REUTERS / Eric Gaillard

Fines without having been checked

"

 At the end of the day, it is always the word of the police officer, of the sworn officer that prevails 

." Even when the young people can prove "that 

at the time of the control they were sitting in class 

", annoys Omer Mas Capitolin. “

 It also correlates with the policy of numbers within the police. The police are used to checking these young people, they know their name, they know their address, and so we stick fines to them that arrive in waves.

 "

Young people who receive a fine without having been checked, it is very common, confirms Rafaëlle Pardier. "

 With the state of health emergency, we gave the police a stronger power of verbalization to enforce health measures

 ", explains Rafaëlle Parlier. “

 Many people who until then had no contact with the police were fined for the first time. But for young people who were already in the throes of police harassment, it only exacerbated the problem.

 "A phenomenon that goes beyond the borders of Paris and its suburbs, the association has received testimonies from Isère, Essonne, Maine-et-Loire ...

To try to change things, several associations and committed lawyers are preparing to collectively seize the Defender of Rights.

►The Bondy Blog investigation: Young people over-indebted because of the curfew fines in the neighborhoods

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