When an individual is on the run, the police must actively search for him for at least two months. After this period, he is registered in the File of wanted persons (FPR), a national file that the police can consult at the slightest identity check. In this excerpt from “Complementary investigation”, after an arrest carried out within the regulatory time limits, a man sentenced to eighteen months in prison who had fled at the end of his trial will sleep the same evening behind bars. But for an individual arrested, how many manage to escape justice?
Journalists have been able to follow the work of the Bordeaux police officers specialized in the execution of court decisions, who proceed to the arrest of fugitives, and that of the magistrates in charge of the execution of sentences. Deputy prosecutor Marie Vialatte de Pémille recognizes this: “Anyone who has the means to go abroad, to rebuild their identity… they can escape” to justice.
How many wanted persons are there nationally?
For months, “Complément d’Enquête” has sought to find out how many people are wanted for legal reasons at the national level. The last official data dates from… 2009 (nearly 30,000 individuals sentenced to prison would be on the run). The Ministries of Justice andIInterior said they did not have more recent figures to share with journalists.
As for the measurement of the execution of sentences, in the absence of a precise statistical tool, the calculation methods have remained archaic to say the least. For example, in the jurisdiction of Bordeaux, by the admission of Marie Vialatte de Pémille, the registry officers would each make their own statistics “via small sticks”.
“The absence of computer tools to collect reliable data (…) prevents us from knowing and analyzing the real deadlines for execution.”
Excerpt from an internal report from 2021quoted in “Additional investigation”
The problem was denounced by the justice itself in an internal report from 2021 obtained by “Complément d’Enquête”. The report also points “the lack of staff in the police stations dedicated to the execution of sentences”, which explains that “the police have difficulty respecting the two-month deadline”. At her level, in Bordeaux, Marie Vialatte de Pémille sees the number of fugitive files increase each year.
Excerpt from “Fugitives: catch me if you can!”, a document to see in “Complément d’Enquête” on February 9, 2023.
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