A study carried out by the Magistrates’ Union warns of the dangers faced by minors in France in the face of a lack of justice resources.
While a commission of inquiry was launched on April 30 into the dysfunctions of Child Welfare (ASE), the Magistrates’ Union published on Monday May 6 a damning investigation into juvenile justice in France. This “state of affairs” is the result of a survey distributed at the end of 2023 to all children’s judges. In total, 176 responded out of 522, or 35%, spread across the entire territory. A summary will be delivered in person to the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, Tuesday May 7.
The conclusions of the investigation are worrying to say the least: it appears that children’s judges do not have the means to render their decisions within acceptable time frames and in decent conditions, if only by the number of cases that is their responsibility. In theory, a children’s judge should monitor 325 situations (either a child or a sibling). But in practice, half follow 450 situations or more (or at least 800 children), according to survey data. “In reality, many juvenile courts are in unbelievably overloaded situations”points out the Magistrates’ Union.
Delayed procedures
This overload leads to a lengthening of procedures. “You often have to wait more than six months after seeing the judge, sometimes a year, or even more, in certain departments” to see an educator arrive at home, notes the study. The law provides that the child must be kept in his family, whenever possible. “In this case, the judge appoints either a qualified person or an observation, education or re-education service in an open environment, giving them the mission of providing help and advice to the family, in order to overcome the difficulties material or moral that it encounters”explains the Magistrates’ Union.
But the wait is such that children find themselves “neglected, out of school, deprived of care, victims of violence”. For their part, parents to whom educational assistance has been announced “remain destitute”denounces the union, adding that “sometimes the situation of minors deteriorates so much that they can no longer stay with their family”. The lack of measures at home therefore leads to an increase in placements.
When keeping the child at home is not possible, he or she is entrusted to a third party: Child Welfare, which represents 80% of placements ordered by children’s judges. But, due to a lack of places, a large part of these placements are not carried out: the children therefore remain with their families, despite the danger they face.
Mistreatment for lack of places
At the end of its investigation, the Magistrates’ Union considers that there is “at least 3,335 unexecuted placements in France”, declares Kim Reuflet, president of the union classified on the left, to franceinfo. Ille-et-Vilaine beats the record in this area with 397 unexecuted placements, followed by Loire-Atlantique, with 300 unexecuted placements, and the North, which totals 248.
“We are talking about situations of very serious mistreatment”underlines Kim Reuflet, who cites the example of a teenager beaten by her mother with a belt and electric cables, who arrived at school shorn. “She was placed urgently, but a month later, the ASE handed her over to her mother, because there was no place for her in her department”illustrates the magistrate. A 5-year-old boy, out of school and malnourished, and his 12-year-old sister, victim of violence, also waited six months to be placed.
“To the unexecuted placements are added the poorly executed placements”castigates the Magistrates’ Union, which recalls that children very often find themselves “tossed from place of reception to place of reception and/or are accommodated in places not approved by the department, or even in hotels or campsites, which is nevertheless prohibited by law”.
Expedited hearings
Beyond this lack of places and suitable structures, children’s judges are seriously short of time. Although they are supposed to “hear any minor ‘capable of discernment'” as provided for in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, 34% of children’s judges do not systematically hear children separately. “I hear minors from the age of 7 in a fairly general way. However, these hearings are very quick and siblings are heard together, except in special cases”testifies a children’s judge in Versailles.
“I do not believe that I provide quality justice: I sometimes make decisions without seeing the families or after hearings limited by time.”
A children’s judge in Versaillescited in the report of the Syndicat de la magistrature
A judge in Angers (Maine-et-Loire) regrets that “criminal offenses and investigations relating to minors are relegated to the background compared to criminal policies deemed to be priorities (domestic violence and drugs)”ensuring that he “It is not uncommon to never have an answer on the status of the investigations, and certain investigations (for suspicions of abuse such as shaken baby or intra-family sexual abuse) have sometimes never started more than a year after their report”.
Proposals to improve the situation
To resolve these problems, the Magistrates’ Union is calling for more children’s judges. “To judge properly, if children’s judges have to follow 325 situations, there should be 235 more, just for educational assistance”, according to union estimates. There would also be a need for more clerks. The union also recommends publishing, in each department, the number of monthly unfilled placements and publishing, in real time, a dashboard including the number of open educational assistance measures and accommodation places available.
According to the Magistrates’ Union, the objectives for childcare places set in the 2020-2022 national child prevention and protection strategy should also be revised significantly upwards (only 600 places planned for siblings on the the entire territory). Finally, the treatment of violence against children should be “a priority objective of criminal policy in the same way as domestic violence”.
The study highlights that every year in France, 160,000 children are sexually assaulted, mainly within their family, and that in 2022, 60 children will die violent deaths within the family.