Do criminals sentenced to long terms become aware of their actions during their incarceration?
Are they questioning themselves?
Do they become different men?
These are the questions that Frédérique Lantieri asked herself after having presented more than a hundred cases in the program "Faire entre l'accusé" on France 2. The journalist pushed her thinking by making the documentary
Dangereux à perpétuité
, broadcast this Wednesday January 18 on France 2.
No names or faces
She was able to enter the National Assessment Center in Fresnes.
It is in particular in this establishment (there are six in France) that supervisors, prison counselors for integration and probation and psychoclinicians, assess the risk of recidivism of prisoners sentenced to long sentences (more than ten years). requesting early release.
For six weeks, the journalist was able to film the daily life of these professionals but also of certain prisoners punctuated by appointments, interviews and various activities... with all the same some restrictions.
“We should not give their names or film their faces
, explains Frédérique Lantieri.
It was also necessary that we contextualize the facts as little as possible, that is to say that we do not give the date, the place and the victim.
It had to be blurry enough that no one knew each other
.
To read also Frédérique Lantieri: “The judgment of” Bring in the accused “on the public service is distressing”
The psychological path
All the detainees followed in the documentary have a heavy past: Jean-Paul, sentenced to life imprisonment for rape and murder;
Stéphane, sentenced to 15 years for murder;
Bruno, sentenced to 10 years for rape of a minor;
William, sentenced to 20 years for rape of a vulnerable person.
All are there to try to obtain an early release.
Through numerous interviews and careful observation on a daily basis, the professionals of the National Assessment Center try to find out more about the psychological path they have traveled since their detention, their ability to reintegrate into the society and, above all, not to reoffend.
But how to assess such a risk?
Their work is based on methods from Anglo-Saxon and Quebec criminology that have been scientifically proven.
Read alsoMarie Drucker meets prisoners
The meaning of the pain
“
The idea is to identify factors that reduce the risk of recidivism
, explains in the film Julien Bernard, director of the CNE of Fresnes.
This can be, for example, the investment of the person in hobbies, in an association, a family that is supportive.
And, conversely, we try to see the risk factors such as the person's lack of introspective progress, their inability to identify their weaknesses or the fact that they return to the same criminogenic context as during their criminal act. .
We then try to make a balance to assess the risk of recurrence ”
.
Through the interviews of the prisoners with the penitentiary counselors for integration and probation and the psychoclinicians and thanks to the analyzes of the professionals, we discover the mysteries and the stakes of an early release.
Frédérique Lantieri who, since the stop of "Let the accused enter" on France 2, has been making documentaries for the public service, offers here an exciting film which allows us to wonder about the meaning of the penalty and the profit that prisoners can derive from it.