The book "Flic" or how some police officers feel invested with a "divine mission"
In Flic, a journalist went undercover in the police force (published on September 3, 2020 by Goutte d'Or), Valentin Gendrot describes his two years spent in the police force as a security assistant.
Stéphane Lemercier, University of Montpellier
He recounts his three-month "low-cost" training, his assignment to a patrol unit in the19th arrondissement of Paris, where he witnessed and even participated in several reprehensible acts committed by his colleagues.
Beyond the controversy sparked by the fact that he did not intervene at the time and decided to cover for the perpetrators by giving false testimony, without ever reporting the facts to his superiors, the fact remains that the reported actions describe a reality and attest to an increasingly symptomatic "hardline" attitude among certain police officers, whom I would call "Templar police officers."
What is it about? Who are they? Why is this behavior detrimental to the police force, and how can it be remedied?
Hunter-gatherers
In the police force, hunters are officers who seek to catch offenders in the act at all costs, while "fishermen" are those who wait for a traffic violation to occur in front of them so they can "catch" it.
Some of these hunters seem to believe that they are on a "divine mission." Reports mention military or religious insignia, misappropriated and pinned onto uniforms, elevating those who wear them and associating their profession with a highly symbolic role.
Some believe that they are society's last line of defense and want to wage a crusade against delinquency and crime, just as the Knights Templar once set out across France to protect pilgrims and defend the Holy Land. These police officers are less concerned with their public service mission than with eradicating all criminals, even if it means resorting to illegal means to achieve this.
Joel Saget/AFP, FAL
Above all, they want to defend their territory (which is the jurisdiction of the police district) and their prerogatives (which are to maintain order and public peace), imposing themselves by force if necessary, spreading terror throughthe performance of rituals (systematic identity checks with very thorough pat-downs and degrading or humiliating comments, etc.) and aggressive attitudes, because virility and violence are valued, as Valentin Gendrot reports several times in his book, when his bored colleagues enjoy telling him about dangerous arrests and beatings they have carried out during their careers.
They never back down: that would be seen as cowardice. They don't report each other: that would be a betrayal of their own "code of honor," which has nothing to do with the Code of Ethics...
The feeling of being the only ones who know the truth
Why do they act this way? Because they feel that they are the only ones who know the truth and they believe that what they endure on a daily basis is the reality of life: street violence, social deprivation, drugs, and death lurking around every corner.
They also get their news from media outlets dedicated to their profession, which often feed them anxiety-inducing information. The website actu17.com is very popular, and also has an app and social media accounts (279,000 followers on Facebook). However, Actu17 is a privately run media outlet and the information it publishes is not always verified. These sites also serve as an outlet for law enforcement professionals who feel that they are not being listened to or properly represented.
However, these networks encourage them to remain within a certain circle that rarely admits outsiders. Valentin Gendrot describes this quite well when a certain Stan, the brigade's hunter, sighs because he will have to patrol with him, the inexperienced ADS, "the dead weight."
They know each other and often recognize each other by the professional equipment they carry, which tends toward militarization of police uniforms (tactical vests, combat gloves, modified weapons, etc.), but also by their attitude at work.
They carry out systematic checks during which they challenge the "bastards" (the young people they come across and whom they automatically assign the role of delinquents, as the author reports), they slap them, make threats, even insult them, especially when they are on duty in the jails, but also on the public highway. And this goes as far as a proper beating if the target dares to protest after being insulted, jostled, or struck.
Stand together
This is what happened to this undercover journalist during a routine ID check of three or four teenagers hanging around at the foot of a building. One of them was slapped in front of his friends, then taken away in a police vehicle where he was punched repeatedly by a police officer before being placed in custody for contempt and threats.
The young man will file a complaint and the police officers involved will be questioned. But everyone will close ranks around their colleague who was caught in the act, including those who clearly disagreed (which seemed to be the case with the patrol chief, who had commented to the offending officer about his behavior but did not stop him...).
And Valentin Gendrot explains it very well: he recounts how police officers behave among themselves, how they withdraw into themselves, and how they communicate with each other. In fact, they close themselves off within their professional group with an identified and common enemy: young people from immigrant backgrounds or simply the "cassos" who are a cancer on society. They use private messaging services that allow them to get together and "let loose" easily, without being contradicted.
In addition, because their irregular working hours prevent them from having a social life outside of work, they become isolated from society due to a biased perception of reality fueled by news sites that focus on tragic events, lax justice measures, and police officers who are injured or killed, not to mention police suicides: there have been 28 in 2020, including three in the past week alone.
Resentment is the most widely shared thing in the world.
All these factors encourage a retreat into professional identity, from which they draw the strength to continue working, setting themselves up as true warriors (not to say heroes!) in the fight against delinquency and crime, the last bastion of a society in decline.
In 2006, in an essay, German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk observed that "resentment is the most evenly distributed thing in the world."
He went on to add: "The fury of resentment awakens from the moment the offended person decides to sink into resentment as if it were a choice..." What Valentin Gendrot describes is, unfortunately, sadly commonplace. In a book entitled La peur a changé de camp(Fear has changed sides), journalist Frédéric Ploquin quotes a police sergeant as saying:
"It's true that we sometimes kicked them, but the guys kept their heads down."
These are terms from the same register used by the undercover journalist's colleagues: they "beat people up, punch them, beat them."
They believe it calms people down, but often it escalates. But is it really honorable to make a teenager bow their head by slapping them? Who has never felt humiliated and a desire for revenge tenfold after being hit or insulted in front of their friends or family? This kind of reprehensible behavior breeds resentment, bitterness, and often even hatred. So how can we be surprised when police officers get pelted with rocks when they drive through certain neighborhoods? Young people end up bowing their heads when they are alone or outnumbered, but as soon as they get together in a group, they take their revenge like any other humiliated human being...
The urgency of the moment
The problem is that police officers act in the heat of the moment, following the traditional codes of conduct instilled in them by their elders, rather than thinking about the possible consequences of their actions for the future. Max Weber explained it this way:
"Activities that fall within the scope of traditional behavior based on attitudes acquired in the past sometimes give way to other activities in endless response to unusual excitement, where the directions of action are consciously developed according to axiological rationality or teleological rationality."
The first reality is that agents comply with imperatives or duties imposed on them (duty, dignity, piety, etc.) without worrying about the foreseeable consequences of their actions. The second is that agents systematically weigh up the ends, means, and main or secondary consequences of their activities and act accordingly. Law enforcement officers should therefore strive for teleological rationality.
If police officers realized that increasing violence will ultimately harm the cause they defend, namely the rule of law, then things could change for the better. There has been widespread unease within the police force for years, and reform is urgently needed.
This would require better initial training, a better supervision ratio for young recruits, and an overhaul of thepolice ethicsThis would promote dialogue rather than violence and would be based on empathetic, non-authoritarian discernment.
Stéphane Lemercier, Lecturer – Member of the Montpellier Criminal Law Team (EDPM), University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.