Regard de femme (Policier) (French Edition)

I'd like to read this book on Kindle Don't have a Kindle? Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Explore the Home Gift Guide. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. This report analyzes the stumbling blocks these women come up against in their difficult search for justice. In this document, Amnesty International makes various recommendations to the French authorities, based on the normative framework of human rights as well as on the reflections and experience of actors on the ground.

Furthermore, while legal tools do exist, women often have little knowledge of their rights, and professionals, whether they be police, public prosecutors, social workers or doctors, are generally not properly equipped to provide them with appropriate support. What these women need, in order to escape from the situation they find themselves in, especially to enable them to leave the perpetrator of the violence, is to have a real alternative open to them, as well as protection and a plan.

With this contribution to the struggle against violence against women, Amnesty International is sending out an alarm call to society and appealing to the State to fulfil its responsibilities.

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When a woman who has been the victim of domestic violence dares "to break her silence", as women were invited to do during a campaign conducted during the s to raise public awareness of the issue, she should no longer be confronted with incomprehension and indifference. Fifteen years on, this research by Amnesty International shows how difficult it still is today to grasp the seriousness of this phenomenon and respond to it. As long as violence against women is concealed or relativized, as long as it is not given sufficient attention by the State and is not recognized as a real problem by society as a whole, it will not stop.

This is what it will take for France, which claims to be the cradle of human rights, to become the cradle of women's rights. Violence against women today still remains largely unrecognized and greatly underestimated. It is tightly bound up with enduring gender-based discrimination. This is what distinguishes it from other kinds of violence: This common denominator forms a common thread known as the "continuum" of violence against women. Laws constitute a crucial normative framework for fighting against discrimination but are not in themselves sufficient.

They are only a first step in moving towards the eradication of violence against women. Such laws need to be enforced throughout the country and accompanied by a genuine change in attitudes. It is this change, which is bound to take much longer, that will make the difference in practice.

Violence against women is fuelled by a system of discrimination which keeps women in a subordinate position. Not all such discrimination leads to violence, however. Nevertheless, because it is often hidden, commonplace and an integral part of the norms and practices of social functioning, discrimination against women is an ideal breeding ground for violence. It still, even today, generates relationships of power and domination and is often translated into a sense of ownership of women's bodies and minds. Violence against women is gender-based violence.

Sexual identity is not only determined by biological identity, it is the result of a particular process of socialization. Any violence that is founded on that identity thus constitutes what is known as "gender-based violence". Such violence is all the more powerful in that the inequality that it both leads to and fuels is a societal norm. Violence is difficult to define. International law has put forward a universally-accepted definition of violence against women and the discrimination in which it is rooted.

These rights include the right to live free from any form of torture or degrading or humiliating treatment 5 , the right to life 6 , the right to consent freely to marriage 7 , the right to better working and living conditions, the highest standards of health and equal protection under the law 8 , and the right to live free from any form of discrimination based on gender, race, religion or social origin 9.

It recognizes conscious and deliberate forms of discrimination against women as well as the discriminatory consequences of certain social, economic and cultural behaviour or provisions. Article 1 specifies that:. The CEDAW Committee recommendations are the authoritative interpretation of the rights contained in the Convention, rights which States are under an obligation to implement, respect and guarantee. It defined it as follows:.

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women is not legally binding but does provide a universally-applicable definition of violence against women. It encompasses, but is not limited to, the following forms of violence:. Moreover, the preamble to the Declaration states that this violence "is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women" and adds that it " is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men".

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International human rights law imposes certain obligations on States, the most obvious being to bring their own legislation into line with the treaties they have signed and ratified and to ensure that their officials respect all human rights. States also have an obligation to ensure that these rights are given concrete expression in practice, both with regard to punishing the perpetrators and taking preventive action, as well as with regard to providing reparation to victims.

What is more, this does not only apply to the acts and omissions of state officials. The State must ensure that human rights are respected by private actors and, if they are not, they must investigate and prosecute those responsible for any violations of these rights. The State is therefore responsible for its actions as well as its omissions. That being the case, the failure on the part of the State to punish an act of violence or to take all possible steps to protect someone who is at risk of serious violence can be considered to be a breach of its international commitments.

This is known as the duty of due diligence. It means that the State has a duty to act diligently to prevent, investigate, punish and provide reparation for any violations of international rights. The State is responsible for ensuring that all women's human rights are respected by its officials as well as by private actors and that any failure to do so is punished in accordance with the law. It recommended that "States parties should take appropriate and effective measures to overcome all forms of gender-based violence, whether by public or private act".

This principle encompasses various mutually reinforcing obligations which allow a "virtuous circle" of good practice to be created:. This means that the State has an obligation to use all the means at its disposal to combat sexist behaviour, in particular by incorporating this approach into its educational tools and school curricula, carrying out regular publicity campaigns and training its officials from an egalitarian perspective. However, that also means ensuring that the perpetrators of domestic violence do not go unpunished and that the State does everything it can to ensure that women have genuine access to justice.

Over and beyond compensation, reparation also means that the violence and the rights violations to which they have been subjected should be acknowledged and that the perpetrator should be appropriately punished in keeping with national law. Combating impunity, namely the failure to prosecute and punish those responsible for human rights violations, is at the heart of these obligations. Impunity itself is a violation of the rights of the victim in that it denies them access to justice and reparation, as well as the right to be recognized as a victim.

Impunity helps to perpetuate violence because leaving perpetrators unpunished only bolsters their sense of domination over women. There are still a number of preconceived ideas about this: However, violence affects all women, regardless of origin or occupation. In cases of violence against women, the perpetrator is often known to, or indeed a close relative of, the victim.

It is often this closeness that stands in the way of the woman obtaining justice. Many police officers, public prosecutors and doctors still think that such violence is simply indicative of interpersonal conflict. It is largely unrecognized and underestimated and, even today, is very rarely denounced. It is often the women themselves who do not dare, or do not know how, to talk about it. Whatever form it takes, violence against women is accompanied and fuelled by a form of leverage, a complex system of domination governed by control and fear.

Most women who are subjected to domestic violence are trapped: The leverage the perpetrator has is fuelled by the fact that such violence often remains hidden and the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim is an intimate one. The women involved are usually isolated and under constant threat, and face a real risk of reprisals.

Given that the perpetrator of the violence may be the father of their children or a member of their family, and that women may be perceived as lacking respect for the family, feelings of guilt keep them quiet. Some feel responsible for the failure of the relationship, a feeling that is all the stronger given the particular image that the role of the woman within a relationship has.

This ambivalence is further heightened by the risk that they will end up in an extremely precarious situation with no income or accommodation as well as by the fear of losing their children. In the case of women who have been subjected to trafficking, the main reason why they do not report what has happened to them is that they face a real risk of threats and attacks on their lives and there is no specific alternative open to them to enable them to escape the violence.

In , she lodged a complaint for the first time. She was referred for penal mediation see below for further discussion of this measure , in the course of which the perpetrator promised to stop assaulting her. Following the mediation, A. After her partner had hit her and pushed her down the stairs, A. She was immobilized for over a month and unable to get around the house. Her partner was held in police custody for 24 hours following which the couple were summoned together to explain what had happened. No further action was taken on the complaint. She has applied for council housing but so far has not been offered anything.

She is still being subjected to violence by her partner but, as long as she is working from home, she refuses to leave. For her, "Staying put in my home is also a way of fighting back". The French State has undeniably taken some steps towards improving its response to the issue of domestic violence. However, coordination, will and resources are still lacking which means that such measures are applied in a very ad hoc way throughout the country.

The procedures women have to go through to get access to justice remain slow and complex and, when confronted with them, they are often discouraged by what appears to them to be an obstacle course. It should be remembered that the State has an obligation to ensure that such violence does not go unpunished, that the victims obtain reparation and that, in addition, there is a genuine change of attitude among professionals as well as the general public. Over the past twenty years, the State has taken numerous steps to bring its legislation into line with the principles of international law and human rights relating to the struggle against discrimination and violence against women in France.

However, it was only in , when the new Criminal Code came into force, that the seriousness of domestic violence was acknowledged through the introduction of an aggravating circumstance that applies in the event that the spouse or partner of the victim uses criminal violence at the time of an incident.

Today a growing number of women are daring to break their silence to denounce the violence they face from their partner. However, the shortcomings in the justice system, indeed the lack of response from the courts, reinforce the perpetrators' sense of impunity as well as the idea that justice stops at the entrance to the home. By doing so, it changes attitudes and shapes culture. The law therefore has both a symbolic and educational function.

It helps to encourage genuine prevention work directed at youth and to mould the behaviour of future generations". In actual fact, numerous obstacles still stand in the way of these women being recognized as victims.

In the follow-up to international meetings on the issue of women's rights, in particular after the Fourth World Conference on Women's Rights in , and then in 19 , France has taken some measures at a legislative level and in connection with the work of professionals in order to fight more effectively against domestic violence. A specialized administration has been set up by the French State to deal with women's rights and equality. The work done by these commissions and how dynamic they are can vary considerably from region to region.

It concludes that the service has relatively limited resources and that its work throughout the country as a whole is variable. The IGAS report stresses that greater effectiveness would be possible but only if there were a genuine coordinated and integrated policy which placed equal opportunities at the heart of all State action and did not make do with individual actions.

In this connection, the Plan global de lutte contre les violences faites aux femmes Under this action plan, emphasis would be placed on the provision of housing, professional support and security to victims and the allocation of resources to specialist organizations, as well as on information-gathering and the prevention of violence against women.

While it is still somewhat too soon to comment on the specific results of the plan, it is not too soon to regret that it has not been followed up with action coordinated across the different ministries. It continues to be a strategy taken up essentially by the regional women's rights offices which often have very limited human and financial resources. In order for such a plan to be genuinely effective, it is crucial that it is adopted at an inter-ministerial level, taken up by all public authorities and given proper budgetary provision.

It has gone from being a ministerial office with over 20 people to a department of four people with Catherine Vautrin at its head. On 23 November , Catherine Vautrin submitted a document to the Council of Ministers outlining the main areas of work scheduled for and reporting on the results of the work undertaken in the year just ended. Several examples of good practice are mentioned, including emergency accommodation voucher schemes and initiatives on reintegration. However, they cannot be seen as coordinated effective action at a national level. The communication also lists four measures to support the victims of violence.

The first measure, inspired by the shelter scheme used for elderly people and the disabled, concerns accommodation: Several organizations have already expressed reservations about a system which is likely to treat women as children rather than increase the resources allocated to existing accommodation facilities.

The second measure concerns the setting in place of more effective medical care in eight departments within metropolitan France. The third measure concerns the strengthening of sanctions against the perpetrators of violence and the fourth consists of a proposal to distribute 8, copies of a support booklet, which would also be available on the internet, to all professionals.

These measures show that recognition of the issue has improved but they are still not enough to ensure that there is a national strategy to prevent domestic violence, punish the perpetrators and protect the victims. In particular, the plan does not address the question of speedier and more effective handling of such cases by the courts, the question of accommodation and alternative solutions for women who have suffered violence, the monitoring of protection measures and, lastly, the question of the financial, material and human resources that are necessary for rigorous and uniform implementation throughout the whole country.

Other ministries, such as the Justice and Interior Ministries, have also taken action on this issue. The guide, which is complete and practical and has been distributed to all public prosecutors' offices, is not binding and professionals within the health service and police as well as social services are still largely unaware of its existence.

However, this number does not deal specifically with domestic violence but provides a sympathetic ear and advice to all victims of any type of breach of the French Criminal Code. Though interesting, this campaign is a good illustration of the lack of coordination between the different resources that already exist. In France, women who have been subjected to domestic violence can seek justice either by means of criminal prosecution, which allows the perpetrator to be punished and the victim to be awarded compensation, or through a civil action, which allows the consequences of the breakdown in a couple's relationship to be resolved.

Many cases of violence against women will never be prosecuted in a criminal court, either because the woman did not lodge a complaint or because the complaint came to nothing. On the other hand, married women who have suffered violence at the hands of their husband, can access a divorce procedure allowing them be separated from the perpetrator of the violence. This procedure is not always enough to put an end to the violence since separation can sometimes lead to renewed violence but divorce is often seen as the only possibility for women who do not wish to have their husband brought before a criminal court or, at least at the time the violence occurs, are not ready to do so.

Divorce by mutual consent: Divorce resulting from acceptance that the marriage has broken down: The judge grants the divorce if convinced that the two parties have freely consented to it. Divorce resulting from definitive deterioration of the marriage bond: Divorce on grounds of misconduct: It is in these kinds of cases that domestic violence can appear as a ground for misconduct justifying a divorce. In the context of divorce on grounds of misconduct, the violence suffered by one of the parties can be taken into account.

This procedure is still complicated and often slow. It is difficult to obtain evidence of the violence, especially if there is no parallel criminal prosecution. Given the complexity and slowness of this process and also because they are concerned about the risk of reprisals from their husband, women can be reluctant to seek divorce on grounds of misconduct, as in the case of lodging a complaint.

Before the entry into force of the law dated 26 May 23 , a judge could already take emergency measures once an application for divorce had been received. Since the new rules came into effect, namely since 1 January , the law specifically states that, in the event "of violence committed by one of the spouses putting the other spouse or a child or children in danger, a judge can rule that the couple should live apart, making it clear which of the two should continue to reside in the marital home.

Other than in special circumstances, the home is allocated to the spouse who is not the perpetrator of the violence". Prior to , family court judges could only rule on allocation of the marital home at the time of the conciliation hearing in the presence of the two parties. Now, in the context of an emergency procedure and regardless of any divorce proceedings, a family court judge can, at the request of the victim, order the removal of the violent spouse.

These measures concern use of the marital home, the exercise of parental authority and how much each spouse should contribute to the marital expenses.

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Having their husband removed from the home is not, however, always the route women would choose to go down to bring about a split. The marital home may be associated with the violence in that it is seen as the place where it occurred. In such a set-up, women have no personal space, they are part of the man's property and possessions ". This law only came into effect on 1 January and it is therefore hard to assess what effect it has had on domestic violence.

Nevertheless, some weaknesses can already be identified. It was not accompanied by the establishment of an effective and systematic mechanism for ensuring that such measures are followed up, especially with the provision of protection and support to the victim. Any such system should be developed in conjunction not only with the police service but also with a partnership network of organizations and others with specialist knowledge of the issue.

In itself, having the husband removed by a judge may not therefore be enough to end the violence. Amnesty International believes that this measure should be accompanied by a genuine strategy for protecting the victim and punishing the perpetrator which, among other things, would allow for better coordination between the way cases are handled in the criminal courts and in the civil courts, especially where protection of the victim is concerned.

Furthermore, it should be remembered that only married women are affected by these new arrangements. Since the introduction of the new Criminal Code in , being a spouse or cohabitee is deemed to be an aggravating circumstance in the case of some violent offences. The main benefit of this amendment to the Criminal Code is that domestic violence is now a crime even if it does not result in the granting of ITT. It means that women can lodge a complaint even when there are no physical effects of the violence or they are no longer visible.

Thus, once there is domestic violence, it must be considered an offence. Emine was killed by her ex-husband, Osman, after she had obtained a divorce and then twice lodged a complaint for violence and threats. In the divorce came through but he went on harassing her, "laying siege to her home, following her and assaulting her when she went out".

Refworld | France: Violence against women: a matter for the State

In the autumn of , Osman reappeared and mounted guard in the street where she lived for several days. At the Strasbourg police headquarters, the unit responsible for dealing with intrafamily violence, a single body operating throughout France, confirmed that she had filed several complaints On 31 January, thinking that Osman was no longer in Strasbourg, she left her home.

That is when he killed her. It happened in mid-afternoon outside of the nursery school attended by the youngest of their three children, just a few metres from the flat where she lived almost as a recluse. Osman was arrested in a nearby tearoom. He was covered in blood and did not resist arrest. According to witnesses quoted in the press, he simply said, "That's it, I've killed this woman. That's it, I did it". The threat hanging over women who have suffered domestic violence is real and a genuine protection system needs to be put in place in order to ensure their safety.

However, as pointed out in the Criminal Prosecution Guide on tackling domestic violence, "at the investigation stage, there is no juridical framework within the Criminal Code for allowing the accused to be restrained from having contact with the victim or forcing him to remove himself from the marital home".

In such cases the perpetrator receives no punishment as long as he complies with certain obligations laid down by the judge. The judge can also rule on whether it is necessary for the perpetrator to be monitored by an organization providing support to the perpetrators of violence. I am obliged to state that, in such a context, many cases of serious violence or deaths resulting from fatal blows could be prevented if the public prosecutor's office were to intervene at the first sign of violence".

Any indication of domestic violence has to be followed up. The perpetrators are systematically arrested for questioning. They are regularly monitored by an organization that provides victim support and undertakes judicial supervision and which also supports the women involved. The same organization will continue to monitor him to ensure that he does not reoffend. Speed is at the heart of the intervention of the Douai public prosecutor's office, with the perpetrator being brought to court swiftly rather than in two or even three months' time as is usually the case.

It also places stress on monitoring the perpetrator and supporting the victim. Undoubtedly encouraged by the high media profile this penal policy has acquired, more and more women are daring to break their silence. Other cases of good practice exist in France. More and more public prosecutor's offices and police services are putting strategies in place to improve their handling of domestic violence.

However, such initiatives are not always coordinated between the different authorities involved and these examples are certainly still rare enough to attract attention. They rely on the initiative of individuals and the response of the justice system is very uneven across the country. Furthermore, a judicial response is not enough to stop such violence and put an end to impunity. The difficulties encountered by women who decide to leave and report a man who is often the person closest to them, sometimes the father of their children or someone for whom they still have feelings, touch on the complexity of human relationships.

It is therefore necessary to take the scale of these difficulties into account and ensure that women have genuine alternatives and adequate support and that any allegations of violence are systematically dealt with by the courts. The law adopted by the Spanish Government on 22 December on this issue has set an important precedent because, as well as prevention measures, it provides for the creation of courts specializing in violence against women in which one and the same judge can rule on both the civil aspects and the criminal aspects of a case involving such violence.

The advantage of this law is that the control and domination that operate within this type of violence are recognized in law. It also provides a coherent normative framework for fighting violence against women at a national level. On 25 November , the Spanish Vice-President, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, announced that the number of complaints of domestic violence filed in Spain had increased by 7.

Such a proposal is all the more interesting in that it would allow the work being done on prevention, training, protection measures, punishment and support for women who have been threatened with or subjected to violence by a man within their circle to be linked up. They go on taking the same old family background approach and sometimes contradict each other ". As a rule, under French law civil and criminal procedures are separate. As long as it is followed up by the public prosecutor's office, this measure is a first step towards improving the connection between civil and criminal proceedings.

It is also possible, in the context of divorce proceedings, for violence against a spouse to be recognized as a reason for divorce on grounds of misconduct without, nevertheless, the perpetrator being prosecuted in the criminal courts. In this respect, it would be interesting to look at the possibility of any violence found in the course of civil proceedings being systematically reported to the public prosecutor's office. It should be possible for the criminal courts to act swiftly to have a spouse or cohabitee removed from the family home.

On the other hand, women do not feel protected: They [criminal proceedings] need to be brought into line with civil procedures divorce, parental authority so that women and children can be protected in the marital home by, in certain cases, having the violent spouse removed". In French law, the rule on non-cumulation of sentences states that sentences of the same kind cannot be cumulative and that the perpetrator will therefore be judged on the most serious offence.

However, in the case of domestic violence, it is precisely an accumulation of humiliating, degrading and violent acts that go to make up the violence and it would not be easy to isolate one from another. If just one of these acts had to be isolated, it is not clear that it would in itself be sufficient to be characterized as violence, despite the aggravating circumstance from which marital violence benefits.

However, this aggravating circumstance on its own seems insufficient to describe the specificity of such violence and Amnesty International believes that the introduction of the notion of habitual violence into the law would enable a better response to be made to domestic violence, both in terms of punishing the perpetrators and recognizing what the women involved have gone through. As Aude Woillez, from SOS femmes , SOS Women, in Marseille, who is training to become a judge 42 , points out, "When a man commits violence against a woman with whom he has lived or with whom he has been in a couple relationship, such violence is never a trivial matter.

It is almost always the continuation of a long series of violent incidents that began when the couple were together". The provisions of the Criminal Code defining domestic violence do not include former spouses or cohabitees. A bill enabling the aggravating circumstance to be extended to "exes" is under discussion. It was unanimously adopted in the Senate on 23 November and tabled for discussion in the National Assembly on 13 December It would therefore appear that this amendment, which individuals and organizations involved with the issue have been hoping for many years, is about to be adopted.

Amnesty International can only encourage its adoption. It's all very well to say you have rights but what if it's not possible to have them enforced? The increase denotes an improvement in the way the justice system responds to this type of violence. However, the courts are still only dealing with a limited number of such cases. The FNSF alone is approached by about 36, women every year, mainly in connection with domestic violence, thus indicating the size of the phenomenon.

Non-governmental organizations are not the only ones to make this assessment. According to the Director General of the National Police, Michel Gaudin, domestic violence accounts for about 30 per cent of calls to local police stations and, in his words, "in the opinion of the services on the ground, such violence [ Of course the justice system cannot address types of violence for which it has not been given responsibility. The number of complaints lodged for domestic violence is not systematically recorded. It is hard to make a definite assessment of the percentage of complaints which have been the subject of legal proceedings.

The gathering of such statistics would not only allow the authorities to have firm figures on what they are dealing with but also to understand at what level of the justice system follow-up comes to a halt. It is left to each public prosecutor's office to decide on the "appropriate" follow-up to be given to any cases reported to it. This makes it inevitable that practice within the French justice system should vary.

This freedom can nevertheless be limited by directives from the State. Some public prosecutor's offices have used the leeway they have to set up schemes enabling them to tackle domestic violence in a systematic way. Though still too few, they prove indisputably that having a clear will to do something about it means that they are able to fight more effectively against such violence.

The first obstacle that stands in the way of justice for women who have suffered domestic violence arises from the difficulty they have in lodging complaints. They also find it harder to report brutality that takes place in private than that which takes place in a public place or their work place. If they end up leaving, or indeed if they report their violent partner, they expose themselves to the real risk of reprisals from him, including the possibility that he will try to kill them.

In addition, the police are not always trained to deal with women who have been subjected to domestic violence. When I went to the police, I heard someone say, "you did without society when you got together with this man and you will do without it when you leave him" Lack of information about their rights also helps to keep these women silent, or even in denial. Initially, a comparison is made between police views of the putative causes of indigent criminality and those advanced by mainstream social commentators.

It is concluded that while the social control junctions of the police in both countries were evident in their dealings with the poor, police perceptions were nonetheless multi-dimensional. Pragmatism, empathy and practical assistance were as much in evidence as repression and suspicion. English commentators all perceived, to a greater or lesser degree, a fundamental conjunction between the poor and crime. Similar attitudes can also be easily discerned in France. As a result of such apprehensions, policing in France and England naturally developed a focus firmly fixed on the casual poor of the major urban areas and on a class of habitual criminals believed to be recruited from their midst.

Certainly a vast amount of police time, in both countries, was spent policing the poor and the very poor 6. Forces tended to concentrate their activities around limited geographical and investigative areas perceived as particularly troublesome. This in turn presumably meant that crime statistics reflecting the perceived criminality of the poor became somewhat self-fulfilling. However, it has also been largely assumed that the police shared prevailing societal attitudes and opinions pertaining to this putative criminality.

The term 'assumed' is employed, because although statistical studies have been conducted in both countries, and an increasing body of work considers the experience of the poor at the hands of the police, comparatively little specific research has yet been undertaken into the attitudes and perceptions of the police concerning the poor and their presumed criminality. Yet while social control theory has now progressed and become gradually more subtle, there is still a perceptible tendency to marginalise the police as individuals.

This is likely to be particularly true when the 'victimless' offences most commonly associated with extreme poverty mendicity and vagrancy are considered. The assessment of opinion is always a problematic issue. It is rarely coherent among any given group of individuals, is often transient and can occasionally be intentionally obscured. However, the memoirs, autobiographies and policing manuals written by retired officers in France and England, utilised here and pertaining in the main to the end of the nineteenth century, are a diverse, potentially fruitful and often disregarded source of material Geographically, too, their experiences were diverse.

Also, while most of the memoirs cited here were written in the period , some slightly later works have been included to allow for a measure of cross-generational comparison. However, this very multiplicity can also be viewed as an advantage in this case.

It is possible to discern a remarkable congruence of attitudes among police officers concerning the poor, a correspondence which often transcends nationality, age and professional positions. Obviously the historian must view such documents with perhaps more than routine scepticism. These are not operational reports and many accounts are impressionistic and anecdotal. Nevertheless, alongside the melodramatic these memoirs also contain a wealth of incidental detail, a proportion of which inevitably pertains to the poor.

Via the prism of this anecdotal data it is possible to investigate specific areas of police opinion.

Societal attitudes towards the presumed criminality of the poor were undergoing change throughout the nineteenth century as individual, moralistic explanations ceded ground to more collective, scientific theories and this process is delineated in section I via reference to mainstream social commentators.

In section II the views of police officers concerning criminality among the poor are evaluated and contrasted with these general perceptions. In both England and France it was common to view the causes of both poverty and crime as intrinsic to the individual rather than collective and inherent within society. Instead, explanations of both poverty and criminality tended to emphasise the role of personal morality and the corrupting influence of idleness and vice. Partly due to a perpetuation of the antiquated distinction between deserving and undeserving poor, and partly due to the deficiency of contemporary economic theory, poverty was commonly seen as the end result of lax personal morality.

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If penury resulted in crime, this was still therefore the fault of reasoning individuals who were held responsible for their own social indigence. Vice, particularly the temptations of drink, was particularly seen to lead individuals first into poverty, and then on to criminality. Via this somewhat tenuous logic he thus concluded that poverty and crime were not intrinsically linked. Similarly Prosper Despine was quick to accent the role of morality or rather its absence among the poor in the origins of criminality. Such individualistic explanations of the links between poverty and crime were undergoing modification, and increasingly ground was being ceded to more collective theories of degeneration and urban decay.

Although most commonly associated with the work of the Italian criminologist Lombroso, Daniel Pick has demonstrated that in fact this diffuse and ill-defined discourse had a European-wide impact Yet although a specific language of decay might have been less evident, there was nonetheless a growing interest in the corrupting influences of urban life on the poor and the relationship of this to their perceived criminality. Many texts reveal a shift towards a more collective view of both poverty and crime, linking the two via the perceived causative determinant of urban degeneration.

Similarly, the Reverend W. Although the perceived causes of criminality among the poor were perhaps shifting from an emphasis on individual morality to the consideration of theories of collective degeneracy, the role of continual, extreme poverty in necessitating crime had never been acknowledged and certainly the very identification of the poor with the majority of crime remained largely unchallenged. It is against this background, albeit briefly demarcated, that an analysis of the attitudes of senior police officials may prove instructive.

Did they then subscribe to the general trends outlined above, or was it perhaps the case that the everyday contact of the police with the poorer elements of society engendered a more nuanced, less hysterical outlook? Many, like Tom Divall an ex-CID chief demonstrate an awareness that while environmental factors were an important component of nascent criminality, the poor were not the only criminals.

Divall cites a conversation with a wealthy family man in the waiting room of a magistrates court. In other memoirs ex-police officers seem positively keen to correct public perceptions of the poor as a criminal class. Yet there seems little doubt that many harboured a genuine sympathy for elements of the poor and did not perceive them merely as a semi-criminal class forever estranged from the rest of society. However, if most police officers did recognise some sort of effectual correlation between poverty and crime but did not believe that all of the poorer elements of society were criminals or even potential criminals , what then did they regard as the nature of the causative link?

Putting an emphasis firmly on personal morality, Mace claimed that the excuse of poverty was rare and that those who stole were generally unruly and pleasure seeking. Indeed he concluded that only one thief in a thousand was acting out of need or desperation.