In a few days, a new Keeper of the Seals will succeed Rachida Dati. Justice has known profound upheavals for several years, both from the point of view of criminal conceptions and the organization of the judicial system. The life of ideas brought together a series of recently published articles which allow to clarify and discuss the changes in progress.
The issues raised by recent debates in criminal and penitentiary policy are numerous and complex. However, three trends seem to be released. The reforms or reform projects driven for several years aim to redraw the organization of the judicial system, transform the meaning of punishment and responsibility and result in a prison overpopulation of the most alarming.
Following the Outreau affair and the demonstration of certain glaring defects in the French judicial system, the conditions seemed met so that a reform of the criminal procedure could be decided in a concerted manner. However, the executive power broke this consensus by pronouncing in favor of an outright abolition of the investigating judge, without prior questioning of the dependence of the prosecution with regard to the Ministry of Justice (Florence Audier). Supposing it is technically applicable, the projected reform could lead to the strengthening of hierarchical control over the magistrates in charge of sensitive investigations. The call to simplify the organization of the judicial system seems to accompany a tendency to limit the independence of judges as well as to the descalization of their functions. The proposal made by the Varinard commission to transform the children’s judge into a minors judge can also be interpreted as an incentive to abandon the educational vision which founds the specificity of their profession (Benoit Bastard and Christian Mouhanna).
Beyond the reorganization of the judicial system, speeches and projects in recent years tend to move the border of sentence and responsibility. Reacting on the spot to various facts, the head of state and the government have embarked on a movement of extension of the perimeter of the criminal sanction. The notions of criminal minority or lack of discernment, invented gradually during the XIXe century to draw a border between people responsible for their actions and the others (Jean-Jacques Yvorel ; Laurence Guignard and Hervé Guillemain) are disputed, in favor of a discourse on the need to inflict sorrows to repair the suffering of the victims. There “ Punitive outpouring “Polishes a movement started in the late 1960s in the United States and which was then broadcast in Europe (Sophie Body-Gendrot). It endeavors to deconstruct the social and legal categories which underpinned a model of protective justice (Francis Bailleau).
This widening of the condemnable and punishable borders inevitably leads to the increase in the prison population, except to develop alternative modes of sentences (electronic bracelet, etc.). Current trends in criminal policy seem to go backwards from an extreme emergency situation in which France is distinguished by the deplorable state of its prisons (Élise Yvorel), which the reports of Amnesty International denounce each year and that the general controller of places of deprivation of freedom appointed in June 2008 is now called to monitor. Penitentiary congestion harms the future reintegration of condemned and, more generally, respect for human dignity. The degradation of the conditions of detention, which results in particular by the fact that between a fifth and a quarter of the prisoners can be considered psychotic (Laurence Guignard and Hervé Guillemain), is the backdrop on which the recent increase in the number of suicides in prison takes on meaning.
Testing
- Florence Audier, “ About the reform of the judiciary and the instruction ».
- Laurence Guignard, Hervé Guillemain, “ The madmen in prison ? ».
- Francis Bailleau, “ Punish minors and adults ».
- Benoit Bastard, Christian Mouhanna, “ The children’s suspended children’s judge ».
- Jean-Jacques Yvorel, “ “The greatest social danger is the beardless bandit” ».
Reports
- Sophie Body-Gendrot, “ Insecurity and fear of fear in the United States ».
- Corinne Castaing, “ Family relations to the prison test », About Gwénola Ricordeau, Detainees and their loved ones. Solidarity and feelings in the shade of the wallsParis, otherwise, 2008.
- Élise Yvorel, “ French prisons and human rights », About Jean Bérard, Gilles Chantraine, 80,000 prisoners in 2017 ? Reform and derives from the prison institutionParis, Amsterdam editions, 2008.
Photo credit: EKO