What is the font for? ? To maintain public order, of course. But can it achieve this if it does not inspire confidence in the population it is supposed to protect? ? Relations between police and society are at the heart of the issue that The Life of Ideas dedicates from this week to the transformations of police work, in France and abroad.
The deterioration of relations between the police and society regularly fuels the chronicle of news items. It also generates a feeling, more and more openly expressed, of unease among the police. The discourse of firmness held for almost ten years by French political leaders has been accompanied by a relative weakening of the institution, now incapable of inspiring confidence and obliged to go one step further in repression to gain respect. Recent years have thus been marked by a paradoxical evolution in the way police officers perceive their work: they increasingly present themselves as victims of insecurity, demanding protection and support from their supervisory authorities, even though They are responsible for maintaining public order. This reversal of perspective has obvious consequences on the conception they have of their profession and on their socio-professional identity, particularly when they believe they are insufficiently supported, by the justice system and the magistrates, in the exercise of their functions.
Contrary to the widespread idea that the sole function of the police is to pursue delinquents and criminals while ensuring the proper application of the law, history and social sciences show that there cannot be an effective police force. without a bond of trust between the police and society, absolutely necessary for citizens to consider it legitimate. This central place given to trust, already present in the work of sociologist Dominique Monjardet (who distinguished the criminal police from the police of public tranquility), is at the heart of the renewal of studies on the police in Great Britain and the United States. United. It also inspired a set of reforms, across the Channel, intended to bring the police closer to the population, both in sociological terms (integration of minorities, so that the police officer looks more like the person they are policing) and procedural (“ co-production » increasing security, through consultations and close relationships). Converselywhen in other countries, such as Mexico or Brazil, the police institution and society maintain a relationship of strong exteriority, social confrontations tend to harden and regulation to be carried out through violence.
Most polices, whatever their model, underwent significant reforms during the 1990s-2000s. Are these reforms, inspired by a desire to demonstrate the State’s attachment to repression and obtaining results, only intended to subject police work to the imperatives of productivity and rationalization? ? Do they not risk aggravating the police officer’s distrust of his institution? ? Or are they likely to help restore the weakened bond of trust between companies and their police? ? The bias of this file is to observe at ground level, in an ethnographic manner, the changes in police work generated by these reforms, to try to measure the gap which separates the thunderous declarations of the promoters of security policies and the practices implemented by field actors. The texts collected, addressing different local and national contexts, make it possible to consider the possibility and possible modalities of police resistance to the evolution of their role, as well as to the political and bureaucratic pressures to which they are subject.
On the folder menu:
- Élodie Lemaire, “ Itinerary of complaints under managerial control », February 22, 2011.
- Quentin Deluermoz, “ “Community policing”, a new project ? », February 25, 2011.
- Ben Bradford and Jonathan Jackson, “ Why do the British trust their police? », 1er March 2011.
- Paolo Napoli, The judge and the policeman », March 7, 2011.
- Interview conducted by Quentin Deluermoz and Jeanne Moisand with historian Pablo Piccato (Columbia University), “ The little arrangements of the Mexican police », March 11, 2011.
- Vivian Ferreira Paes, “ When the police commit the crime. A sociological analysis of the Brazilian case », March 14, 2011.
- Cédric Moreau de Bellaing, “ Investigating legitimate violence », March 23, 2011.
- Yann Philippe, From community policing to bureaucratic policing. Public order and democracy in New York at the turn of the XXe century, April 5, 2011.
And already on The Life of Ideas :
- Jacques de Maillard, “ Can we reform the police? ? », review of the book by Steve Savage
- Quentin Deluermoz, “ Women in uniform », review of the book by Geneviève Pruvost
- Hervé Maupeu, “ State and security in Africa », review of the book by Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos
- Arnaud-Dominique Houte, “ The gendarme’s tactics », review of the book by Aurélien Lignereux
- Chiara Lucrezio Monticelli, “ Birth of identification », review of the book by Vincent Denis
- Nicolas Duvoux, “ Deciphering violence. Interview with Laurent Mucchielli »
