The new Code of Criminal Justice for Minors comes into force on Thursday. Youth legal protection professionals demonstrate against this reform. They believe that the text is too repressive and not educational enough, says Mathieu Moreau, regional secretary of SNPES-PJJ / FSU
France Bleu Bourgogne: One of the stated objectives of this text is to judge minors more quickly. In Côte d’Or currently, how long do we wait before a minor is tried?
Mathieu Moreau: It varies according to the activity of the courts, but it can go up to one year, eighteen months, sometimes two years, in particular for the probation measures which are sometimes very long, the measures of judicial control which can to go beyond the majority. Some young people could be indicted minors, but tried well after their majority. The problem is a problem of resources. This slowness is not necessarily always negative because for us, the educators, it is necessary to take the time. We need this educational time to get in touch with young people and families. Working with confidence doesn’t happen in three weeks.
The new Code of Criminal Justice for Minors provides for two hearings: a first to determine whether the minor is guilty, a second to decide on the sentence. With a fairly short delay between the two hearings. On paper it still seems like a good idea, doesn’t it?
Again, it depends on what we do with this educational time. This break between the two hearings, we speak of probation. I, as an educator, wonder about the content of this testing. Until now, educational measures were taken. Today, we are reducing the role of educators. To check if a young person is respecting his obligations. We are more in the control of probation rather than in education. It worries us because it changes the heart of our missions.
What will it change in your daily job?
Until now, we intervened before young people were found guilty, that is to say that we had the opportunity to work with young people. It is about making a young person understand that there has been a criminal offense committed. It takes time. A young adolescent who commits a fraudulent act does not have the same discernment, the same maturity as an adult. This time is wasted since we will start to get in touch with young people when they are found guilty. And so, it is an educational time that is forgotten.
How many young people do you support in Côte-d’Or?
An educator from the PJJ accompanies around 25 young people throughout the year. And we are between 15 and 20 educators.
You believe that with this new Code of Criminal Justice for minors, adolescents will be judged as like adults. Why is that a problem?
If we have created a specific justice system for minors, it is not for nothing. It assumes that a young person who commits an offense does not have the same judgment as an adult. A young person does not have the same maturity and therefore the response of the justice does not have to be the same. We have to ask ourselves this question when a young person in a neighborhood or in the countryside how an offense: “what does that mean about his environment, his career, his history?”
This reform aims to reduce the pre-trial detention of minors. Can the text change things in this area?
I do not think so. On the issue of confinement we have a real concern. We are asking for places to welcome the young people that we need to place when it comes to protecting them, sometimes from their own families. Today, this number of structures has been reduced to heartache. We have very few solutions, either penal or child protection. And when we question our administration on this, the only answer we have are closed structures, closed centers.
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