“Results which are there, comparable to those they were in 2019, before the pandemic”, welcomes the prefect of Bas-Rhin, Viviane Chevalier during the 2022 safety report in the department. Reinforcement of personnel and digital equipment are the foundations of what has “significantly” helped law enforcement this year.
From now on the police do not necessarily need to return to the police station to consult a file, verbalize the occupation of a building hall or the consumption of cannabis or even take a statement from the victim of a burglary… connected, digitally equipped to be mobile in order to stay on the ground to keep an eye on things.
“Strasbourg represents 90% of crime in the Bas-Rhin”
These reinforced and released staff “on the ground”, this results in a “30% increase in hours of police presence on the public highway, including 9% of pedestrian patrols, in particular in the city center of Strasbourg”, explains Laurent Tarasco, departmental director of public security (DDSP 67). The fact remains that attacks on people have increased in the Bas-Rhin by almost 9% compared to 2021, with an eternal observation: if life in the gendarmerie zone is not the most peaceful, violence remains above all urban. It was “contained”, assures the prefecture.
“Strasbourg still represents 90% of the delinquency of the department that the police are called upon to deal with”, specifies Laurent Tarasco. But “this figure should be put into perspective”, hastens to add the director of the DDSP 67, this violence “remaining very clearly below other cities of comparable importance”.
Fifteen deal points dismantled
In terms of urban violence, they are equal to what was happening before the pandemic. The share of projectile throws on the police has still increased by 30%. The police carried out 470 operations against urban rodeos (i.e. 580% more than in 2021) and fined more than 950 offences, made 62 arrests and seized nearly 130 vehicles. As for drug-related offences, they fell by 18% and fifteen deal points were dismantled.
The police still handled nearly 32,000 crimes and misdemeanors this year and the number of calls to 17 increased by 8%, or nearly 460 calls per day. Unsurprisingly, personal attacks increased by 9% even though domestic violence fell slightly by 1.5%. A misleading statistic because they remain as numerous as in 2019. Note that three feminicides are also to be deplored in the department.
Law enforcement who were also able to rely on a screen-printed van. Vehicle that allows during large events such as demonstrations or the Christmas period, to communicate between agents, organizers, to transmit audio or visual messages, in several languages. Police and gendarmes who also benefited from an endowment of 545 pedestrian cameras, “an often dissuasive means which sometimes makes it possible to defuse conflicts”, recalls the prefect.
Neo, a telephone revolution
Finally, the police were able to take advantage of the wide deployment of the Neo: a mobile phone including all the police applications and allowing in particular to directly verbalize the offenses noted. A means of communication and verbalization which would explain, for example, according to the police, the sharp increase in fixed fines.
This phone is popular in rural areas. “All the gendarmes are equipped with it and by the end of the year, it will allow radio communications”, welcomes Gendarmerie General Jude Vinot. It should be noted that the soldiers were also equipped with mobile workstations, allowing “to have brigades outside the walls and to go to the victims, specifies the officer, and possibly to do the hearings outside. A real revolution. »