Daniel (the first name has been changed) was still a young police officer when he was confronted with his first war of the gangs: "It was in the Val-d'Oise, more than twenty years ago", sighs he does.
Two decades later, Daniel is still in contact with this delinquency: “There are two main sources of this violence: business or deep stupidity.
Drugs generate permanent tensions between neighborhoods or neighboring towns.
Let's say that this is background noise and that this is the basis of the notion of territory and of belonging to this territory.
"
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"A part of our youth is doing very badly": the intolerable increase in violence between minors
In more than twenty years of practice, this cop has observed a "rejuvenation" of the actors of this violence.
“The little ones want to do like the big ones.
Their parents are not benchmarks, the school even less.
Without authority, without limit, without education, what remains?
We must exist in violence, in delinquency.
They think afterwards, and too late, when they find themselves in police custody.
There they cry.
But on their fate, not on that of the victim.
"
Another specialized police officer confirms: “Some show off, but most have no reflection on their act, on the contrary they justify themselves, seek to explain it as if it were normal.
We sometimes have to see them again several years later to hear remorse.
Life no longer has the same value, taking one no longer seems so serious.
"
"Pure stupidity"
So, have these young people hardened themselves?
"They follow the evolution of our society somewhere, which has hardened, right?"
Daniel asks, advancing the answer.
“But what strengthens everything,” he continues, “are social networks.
Before, the fights occurred in the mall, at the stadium, almost by accident because two groups crossed.
Today they
warm themselves
by telephone and set themselves ambushes which they arrive armed: screwdrivers, golf clubs, clubs, hammers, crutches, kitchen knives ... Between us, we call that
the settling of accounts hardware
.
And there is the effect of the pack.
Whoever finds himself isolated is
dead
.
It's the trophy, like hunting.
Pure stupidity.
And everyone leaves already thinking about the
return match
.
"
What role can the police play then?
Daniel breathes: “We are already trying to identify the perpetrators.
To neutralize them is already to lower the pressure.
But the police are at the end of the chain.
When we intervene, in general, it is because all the other actors, parents, national education and social services, have already failed.
"
