Thanks to the personnel deployed in Seine-Saint-Denis, the police and magistrates have doubled their effectiveness in combating everyday crime.

In Seine-Saint-Denis, the number of police custody cases jumped during the Olympic Games period, up to 160 per day instead of 80, France Inter reported on Tuesday.

The most crime-ridden department in France, Seine-Saint-Denis, hosted half of the events of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in July and the police and gendarmes were much more numerous than usual. But since the crime specific to these Olympic Games was quite low, the police and magistrates took advantage of it to tackle everyday crime and improve their methods. In this department, the number of police custody cases jumped during the Olympic Games period, up to 160 per day instead of 80, France Inter reported on Tuesday, August 13.

During the Olympic Games period, from Wednesday 24 July to Sunday 11 August, around a hundred minor offences, mainly snatch thefts, were dealt with on the sidelines of the events. The police, deployed in large numbers throughout the department, were then able to tackle habitual crime more effectively, sometimes reaching the number of 160 police custody cases per day. This is twice as many as in other years over the same period (between 80 and 100).

In Bobigny, the departmental jurisdiction is also satisfied with having been productive. It reduced the processing time for procedures during the Olympic Games: 27 immediate appearance hearings (compared to 12 last year over an equivalent period) and above all the immediate settlement of 75% of cases.

“We will maintain a higher level of referral, not for prosecution in court, but for alternatives to prosecution, with intervention by the prosecutor’s delegate at the end of police custody”declared Éric Mathais, public prosecutor of Bobigny, to France Inter“We will also, which we did not do before the Olympic Games, make referrals for notification of penal orders immediately after police custody. Before, we notified them several months later.”

“The system planned by the Bobigny court for the period was not oversized”

Eric Mathais, public prosecutor of Bobigny

to France Inter

“And above all [le dispositif prévu par le tribunal de Bobigny] was in reality adapted to the usual level of criminal activity and delinquency in Seine-Saint-Denis. Ideally, if this were possible from the point of view of resources, particularly human resources, it could be conveniently perpetuated.” For “to perpetuate this efficiency”the Bobigny judicial court is hoping for more human resources. The prosecution service is to increase from 61 to 66 magistrates, but only from 2027.