“I’ve never been looked at like that in my entire life. »
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Charlotte, 22, will never forget the stare and intense gaze of the Bordeaux inmates. She also won’t forget the sound of those little clickers that inmates activate to alert others to the presence of an incoming guard. A look into a cell? “An inmate stands on the bed and stares at the wall. »
In the “street gang” wing of the prison, the reception of visitors was frosty, says Carolane, also 22 years old. The head of the prisoners, who were all gathered in the common room, asked who these visitors were. When he was informed that they were police officers, “you should have seen his face change,” says Carolane.
The look he gave us was really intimidating.
Carolane, SPVM recruit
Carolane and Loïc, 27, were also shocked to see the excrement-strewn walls in the prison’s isolation wing, commonly called “the hole”. “And there are people who stay there for 72 hours! », shouts Carolane. “Generally the atmosphere is gloomy. The fences, the bars, the slamming doors…it’s something. At the end of the day I was happy to get out of there,” Loïc added.
Audrey-Maude and Simon witnessed an attempted drug delivery via drone. “We had just arrived when a drone dropped drugs in the yard. There were strip searches. The prisoners were sent to solitary confinement. It caused a stir,” says Audrey-Maude.
Shaking hands with a pedophile prisoner, small comments from sex offenders… The two young people were confronted with their limits. “We feel like a little piece of meat,” says Audrey-Maude.
La Presse was unable to accompany the recruits to Bordeaux. The Ministry of Public Safety denied us entry to the prison, one of the oldest in Canada, where living conditions are notoriously difficult.
But even under normal circumstances, the police do not have access to the detention center. They always leave the accused at the door. “It is a privilege for you to come here,” concludes Nadiah Smith, training and organizational development consultant at the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM).
The Bordeaux prison is not the only place where recruits faced hostilities during their five-week detention. “ [Dans une maison de transition]When they told people we would be there the next day, everything exploded. They had to check it for an evening,” says Cédric, 26 years old. But sometimes the aggression toward police showed up in more surprising places.
all cops are bastards
Simon, 21, initially had difficulty recognizing the type of tattoo on the arm of the worker, who works at the school for autistic people À pas de jardin. And then he saw it clearly: a pig’s head with a cap and the acronym ACAB on it. All cops are bastards. Simon was shocked. “I felt uncomfortable. Children have this on their faces all day long! »
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Nearly a dozen SPVM recruits took part in an immersion day at the school for young autistic people, À pas de jardin.
The recruits who attended Giant Steps School all described their experiences at the school for autistic children very positively. The experience allowed them to better understand the behavior of young autistic people and how they should act if they had to challenge a person with such a disorder. They all praised the incredible job the staff did with this difficult clientele (see last tab).
However, this speaker’s tattoo left a bad memory for them.
She never spoke to us. She stayed far away, she didn’t want to know anything… If she portrays us as monsters, it’s sure that the children will be afraid of us.
Alexandrine, 26 year old recruit
The facility’s resource and education center coordinator, Marla Cables, wanted to completely distance her organization from the message conveyed by this tattoo. She said she was excited to participate in the immersion program, a promising initiative. “With this program, we not only explain autism to the police, but they also experience it in a class with our students.” »
“She glared at us.”
“You never ask yourself, isn’t the problem at the end of the line? » The woman who addresses the recruits has been a street worker for years and works with the homeless. She immersed the young people who visited La Maison du Père in a simulation of their own: the police received a call from a citizen about a homeless man begging in the neighborhood.
“What are you going to do?” The young police officers replied that they would go there to talk to the homeless man. That they would explain to him that there had been complaints and that he had violated municipal regulations. But in the end, said Audrey -Maude, the homeless guy could get a fine.
And then the road worker asked her question. Confronting the police with the fact that the homeless person may have been the subject of a report and is violating the rules. But could the caller also be showing intolerance? Does it really make sense to give a homeless person a ticket? Would they have the discretion to ignore this complaint?
This meeting shocked the recruits. “She stared at us angrily,” says 22-year-old Magalie. “I have a bullet for you. Not everyone likes us,” replies Mathieu Farley, police officer for attractiveness and inclusion, one of the eight police officers assigned to the immersion program.
Things unsaid that speak loudly
In some organizations, recruits were the only white people on site. “I see a lot of videos on social media of the police not being nice to the community and that scares me,” a 12-year-old black girl told them.
Same scenario at Accueil Bonneau, “a place that is not too police-friendly,” summarizes Étienne. As the young recruits passed by, neighborhood watch police were called to the scene: They had to control a man who was attacking another for a spot in the cafeteria. They intervened with several agents.
The youths were then questioned by the workers, who determined that the police had overreacted. “We tried to explain our role to them. It took about an hour,” Charlie said.
And sometimes it’s the unspoken things that speak the most. Jérémie, 24, saw this community organization worker physically take two steps back when he told him he was a police officer. “But at the end of the day he shook my hand,” says the young man.
After being told that the youth organization they were visiting that day had very good relations with the police, two recruits saw the speaker begging the journalist not to mention her name in a possible article.
“If my name is in the newspaper with the word SPVM, people will misinterpret it and think I am talking to the police. And my work here will be impossible. »