According to the Ministry of Justice, videoconferencing has already made it possible to avoid more than 30,000 extractions in 2023. This is one of the main demands of prison officers after the death of two of their colleagues, killed in the attack a van at the Incarville tollbooth.
While the perpetrators of the fatal escape at the Incarville toll booth (Eure) are still at large, the blockages in the prisons continue, Thursday, May 16, the day after the meeting of the prison unions with the Minister of Justice. After the death of two guards during the attack on the van transporting repeat offender Mohamed Amra, they are demanding in particular “the drastic reduction of extractions by promoting the use of videoconferencing by magistrates or their travel to establishments”.
Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti intends to respond to these requests, by developing “the use of videoconferencing for presentations to magistrates and certain hearings”. Another proposal from the Minister of Justice: “Prioritize the travel of magistrates and clerks within establishments with regard to the interrogations of the most reported detainees.” If the violent attack that occurred in Normandy is extremely rare – it is the first time since 1992 that a prison officer has been killed in the exercise of his duties – the response by videoconferencing to the problem of judicial extractions is not not new.
The transfer of this delicate mission from the Ministry of the Interior to that of Justice dates from 2009 and the General Review of public policies initiated under the mandate of Nicolas Sarkozy. Before this date, extractions were carried out by the police and the gendarmerie. These prerogatives were gradually recovered by prison officers, until 2019. Since then, professionals and elected officials, including on the right, have continued to warn about the lack of resources and staff allocated to the prison administration. to carry out these sensitive trips. Currently, 2,455 agents carry out extractions, according to figures communicated to franceinfo by the prison administration, when 3,000 additional positions had been deemed necessary from the start of the reform. The ministry intends to respond to the lack of attractiveness of the profession by recently increasing the remuneration of prison guards and officers.
The fact remains that the prison population continues to increase, reaching 77,450 people on April 1, a record. Certainly, inmates who require a level 3 escort, the one set up for Mohamed Amra, and level 4 – a minimum of three agents for a transported inmate, according to the employment doctrine for prison security teams (PDF link) – represented respectively only 3.3% and 0.1% of people incarcerated in 2016 (PDF link). But magistrates are regularly confronted with “impossibilities” on the part of the penitentiary, due to a lack of agents or security forces available, gendarmes and police officers being able to always be called upon for the most at-risk profiles.
“At the time of the creation of the Judicial Extractions Attachment Centers (Prej) – in 2011 –, we still had the police as reinforcements. The more time passes, the less we have them, because the gendarmerie refuses to provide support due to lack of manpower.deplores to franceinfo Antony Mazoyer, delegate to the Penitentiary Union of Supervisors and agent at the Prej of Saint-Quentin Fallavier (Isère). “So generally, we leave alone, with one vehicle and four agents.” According to a white paper on judicial extractions published by the Union of Magistrates in 2019, the rate of refusal to extract detainees could reach 50% in certain jurisdictions, forcing magistrates to release them to have a better chance of hearing them. .
In this context, the Chancellery has developed the use of videoconferencing. As early as 2017, the ministry highlighted the need to evaluate “the legal possibilities of favoring the use of videoconferencing for certain procedures” And “to expand the possible videoconferencing time slots in prisons”. Initially reserved for hearing, interrogation and confrontation, the means of telecommunications were gradually expanded to all stages of the procedure, from investigation to trial, as provided for in the Code of Criminal Procedure. But the executive’s attempts to go further thanks to the health crisis were reframed by the Constitutional Council in 2021. To respect the rights of the defense, the Sages considered that the appearance of defendants in correctional court required the agreement of all parties. At the conference, videoconferencing is only possible for hearings of witnesses and experts.
In 2023, videoconferencing made it possible to avoid more than 30,000 judicial extractions, highlights the Chancellery, emphasizing that the “modernization of equipment is one of the priorities” of the minister. As of May 1, the number of equipment deployed in courts and penitentiary establishments was 4,000, compared to 2,500 in 2020, adds the ministry. And to raise “the increase in network quality”with the gradual deployment of broadband. “We still have generally obsolete equipment that functions poorly”, opposes Judith Allenbach, permanent secretary of the Magistracy Union. According to this investigating judge, face-to-face interrogations remain essential to the “manifestation of the truth”particularly in complex cases.
“It would be damaging to give up good conditions of justice because we cannot find the means to secure extractions.”
Judith Allenbach, secretary of the Magistrates’ Unionat franceinfo
As for the more systematic movement of magistrates in detention, she argues that “it is physically impossible” due to “cabinet overload” judges and the distribution of prisoners from the same case in several prisons. “If we multiplied the number of investigating judges by four or five, perhaps we would have time to go to detention and carry out our interrogations”underlines Judith Allenbach.
An opinion shared by Juliette Chapelle, lawyer and president of the Association of Lawyers for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights: “Prison is not a place of justice.” “It is obviously dramatic what happened, but one of the great principles of law is the presentation in person of the litigant”estimates the criminal lawyer, according to which the development of videoconferencing “is not the right solution” And “also works very poorly technically”. As an example, she cites an interrogation recently carried out by video, due to lack of escort. “We did what is recommended by the European Court of Human Rights, namely a lawyer in prison and one in court. Well, it was not satisfactory, there were lots of: ‘We can’t you can’t hear well, put the camera a little higher.”
In the opinion of the unions themselves, dematerialization is not the alpha and omega of the problem. “Even if we increase the number of videos, it will inevitably be necessary, at some point, for detainees to go to court”observes Ivan Gombert, national secretary of the FO union of prison service directors, who campaigns for the allocation of armored vehicles for escorts. “The quickest thing to do is to replenish personnel and increase weaponry”supports a prison officer stationed in Burgundy, who carried out extractions for five years before leaving these functions due to “lack of means”. If he considers that videoconferencing is “fundamental” for certain profiles of prisoners, he considers that this decision must remain “within the jurisdiction of the judiciary”.
“The judges push them to their limits, perceive their little reactions. Through a screen, it’s not as easy.”
A prison officerat franceinfo
This agent points above all “the violence which has increased outside, with more heavily armed individuals”. “During my five years of extractions, the van was followed several times by individuals. They realized that we had recovered these missions and that it was easier to attack us”he reports.
The Magistrates’ Union draws the same observation. For Judith Allenbach, the drama of Incarville is “especially a sign of the underestimation of the power of action and the harmfulness of organized crime”. “It is probably necessary to increase the security levels of escorts to fully understand the threat”she adds, regretting that “organized crime is not a priority of French criminal policy”.