“In some neighborhoods where we fight against drug trafficking, there are no video protection cameras”, lamented Tuesday, October 26 Gérald Darmanin. The Minister of the Interior was speaking after the violence in the Lyon district of La Duchère, where three police officers from the anti-crime brigade (BAC) were targeted Monday evening by gunfire on a deal point.
>> What we know about the shots which targeted police officers in the district of La Duchère in Lyon
“Video surveillance does not dissuade a certain number of crimes”, replied on franceinfo Christian Mouhanna, sociologist specializing in security policies at the Center for Sociological Research on Law and Criminal Institutions (CESDIP), referring in particular to crimes “which come spontaneously” like fights of alcoholic people. “With regard to highly organized crime, this also raises questions because we know that people can make up themselves, put on make-up and de facto escape the cameras”, details the researcher.
Christian Mouhanna also evokes certain cases “where the cameras were destroyed, damaged by the traffickers”, as in Viry-Châtillon (Essonne). “So we had police officers to protect cameras”, he recalls then that four police officers were injured in October 2016, including two seriously, by a group of fifteen people who threw Molotov cocktails at their vehicles.
This system, according to him, “ask question” : “What use, what protection” bring these cameras? “Wouldn’t it be better to replace the cameras with physical officials?”, he asks. And to remind: “There is always a need for a presence behind the camera. Alone, it is not enough.”
More than video-protection cameras, according to him, it is necessary “a physical presence in certain neighborhoods”. The police presence must be “permanent and accepted in these neighborhoods”, says the researcher. Overcome trafficking and organized crime “asks for insertion with the population to rely on it and human intelligence”. Now, according to him, “This police presence is occasional. It is not permanent.”