After having dissected the entire search operation for little Norah and Romy Carpentier, the coroner has the Amber alert in her sights: she recommends evaluating whether the rules should not be reviewed so that the police can trigger it in all cases of missing children – and not just for kidnappings. The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) does not want to go that far, but indicates that it will give more importance to the “psychological state” of the suspect.
The shrill sound of the alert, broadcast everywhere, is synonymous with emergency and police forces deployed quickly to find a missing child.
Should we relax the criteria that allow us to put our finger on the button? The issue resurfaces periodically, when the disappearance of children horrifies citizens.
This was the case in 2007 with the little Cédrika Provencher. And, more recently, in July 2020, for the sisters Romy and Norah Carpentier: the report was made in the evening, but the alert did not sound until the next day, around 3 p.m.
Why ? Police initially believed they were dealing with a hit and run, not a kidnapping, which did not qualify.
The Amber alert – which has existed in Quebec since 2003 – is triggered only when three very specific criteria are met: the police must have reasonable grounds to believe that a child has been abducted, that their physical safety or their life is in serious jeopardy. danger and that there is information that allows citizens to identify the child, suspect or means of transport used.
It had not been triggered either when little Cédrika Provencher, aged 9, had not returned home one day in July 2007. The word “kidnapping” had not been raised quickly, recalls François Doré. , a former SQ policeman now retired who participated in police operations. The Trois-Rivières police then spoke of “disappearance”.
Still too restrictive an alert?
In her report unveiled last week, Coroner Sophie Régnière recommends that the Ministry of Public Security “assess the relevance of reviewing the criteria for triggering the Amber alert so that it is more inclusive, especially for all types. disappearance of children ”.
After all, “let’s not forget that the acronym Amber stands for ‘Wanted Child Media Alert’. This goes beyond cases of kidnapping, ”writes Me Régnière.
The SQ had not waited for M’s reporte Régnière to make changes, argued the police force this week, after the coroner’s press conference.
Following internal feedback on the police operations deployed to locate the Carpentier sisters, “the Amber alerts operation plan has been revised and updated based on the findings and experience gained in July 2020”, and this, since last fall, said in an interview Chief Inspector Patrice Cardinal, director of communications and international relations at the SQ.
“We kept the same criteria, but we gave ourselves greater flexibility” to assess whether the three conditions are present. “We went over the application and interpretation of the criteria. “
According to him, the key is here: the “context” will be “considered more” in determining whether the kidnapping criterion is met. The police will look into the psychological state of the parent or loved one who is with the child during the report and also the vulnerability of the child vis-à-vis this person. Family circumstances will be assessed, such as a recent separation or divorce, which can be a shocking event and a trigger, he explained.
The criterion of suspected kidnapping is however maintained and the alert will not be extended to all types of disappearances.
Unachievable and counterproductive
Chief Inspector Cardinal explains that some 2,500 disappearances of minors are reported to the SQ each year. Many of these cases are children who return later than expected, especially adolescents in a youth center, not to mention child custody disputes between separated parents, he illustrates.
Triggering an Amber alert every time would be impractical and counterproductive, he said.
We have to keep the “element of scarcity”, otherwise, “we lose people’s attention”.
The Amber alert must remain an “exceptional” measure, opines Simon Lapierre, a professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Ottawa who has closely followed the case of the Carpentier girls. “So that people continue to take them seriously. “
In addition, the Chief Inspector considers that it is not necessary to “distort” a program whose criteria are the same everywhere in North America.
François Doré also believes that we must be careful: but between “too often” and “not enough”, there is a happy medium, slices the ex-police officer.
He welcomes the new method communicated by the SQ this week, although he wonders why the police have waited so long to talk about it. “I have the impression that we are trying to save face” the very day that Coroner Régnière issued a report criticizing police work.
But the approach is good: that the criteria are no longer so “black or white” is a good thing. The SQ adapts to reality, he summarizes, and has a desire to make the rules more “operational”.
As for Chief Inspector Cardinal, he points out that the changes have already had an impact: while there are two Amber alerts in Quebec per year, six have already been triggered this year. He gives as an example the case of the man who was arrested in Sainte-Paule, Bas-St-Laurent, in September after having gone on the run with a 3-year-old child – “the criteria were analyzed differently”.
Before the SQ released its press release this week, Professor Lapierre, a specialist in domestic and family violence, pointed out the obvious benefit of police officers and other stakeholders being more aware of the risks of homicide posed by romantic break-up and separation of a couple. He believes that it is essential to broaden our understanding of these aspects, including the arrival of new spouses, the start of divorce proceedings and parents who verbalize their fears of no longer seeing their children.
Some of these risk factors were present in the case of the father of the Carpentier girls, he says.
The former police officer François Doré also recalls that the Amber alert is not the only tool available to police forces: notices of disappearance posted on social networks and by notice directly to the media are also very useful, without diluting the effect of the Amber alert.
In this, he echoes the comments made by Coroner Régnière in her report: “In any event, it is not the tool that matters, but the speed with which information is disseminated to the media, and therefore , public. “