Curfew is an electric shock not only to the population, but also to the police. Since its application, the number of tickets issued for illegal meetings in homes has exploded.
During the first week of the curfew, less than 371 reports or criminal statements were issued by various police forces in the province for meeting in a private residence. It more than doubled in the previous weeks, which is the equivalent of a holiday.
The increase in these tickets is significant in Montreal itself. From December 21 to 27, SPVM Sleets issued six tickets to illegal meetings in homes. On New Year’s Day, fourteen Montreallers received tickets to meet inside. As it is forbidden to leave your home between 8pm and 5am, the Metropolitan Police have sanctioned 123 offenders.
The SPVM was satisfied with the overwhelming response via email to describe the surge as contradictory: “In fact, the application of the curfew usually brings new results in addition to what has been issued.”
This phenomenon did not leave the national capital. The Quebec City Police Department has distributed 21 tickets to indoor meetings since the curfew was enforced, up from eight the week before.
“We heard a call from the Ministry of Public Safety and, of course, we were not there during the warnings. […] The tone has changed. Also, with the current state of the epidemic, we have reached the stage of issuing declarations of crime, ”explained spokesman Etienne Doan.
On Tuesday, Franకోois Legalt argued that curfew would help police interfere with recalcitrant work.
No more repression
Patrick Tylan, a professor of constitutional law at Laval University, believes that if the police are fast on the trigger, curfew is a form of signal to the police.
According to him, it is unlikely that there will be more meetings in homes in the last days than in the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year.
“For a week, if there were too many tickets to interfere in people’s homes, it clearly made sense, the police called from the government that the time was up. Repression, more severity, more rigor,” he said in an interview with the parliamentary bureau.
Agents are doing a lot more prevention and education with citizens before the Legalt government announces more serious regulation.
As it is now forbidden to leave your home from 8pm to 5am, a meeting in a house looks very serious not only in the eyes of the population, but also in the eyes of the police, the constitutional expert stressed.
“Those who wonder whether curfew is a horse cure or not have gone too far will definitely be tempted to point out in these figures that perhaps the police used this ability to issue tickets more than warnings if there was more, maybe we should not have gone to curfew,” he slips.
Depoling
The last months of the epidemic were not so easy, police officials said behind the scenes. The Legal government is increasing the number of references and decrees, which are very clear and sometimes contradictory. But the responsibility for applying them lies with the “Garochi” on the premises of the police forces.
To illustrate some of the tickets issued before the arrival of the curfew, some even referred to this phenomenon Depoling OrUnderpolling, Some voluntarily downplay the actions of police officers and interfere less, especially for fear of retaliation on social networks.
It is a phenomenon that is still very little documented in Quebec, but the National Police Academy has been studying it since 2018.
“It’s a reaction of a police officer or a team of police officers to a depressing situation, setbacks, negativity or disillusionment to disillusionment. Depoling Arrests of racists in Quebec, the consequences of official surveillance and media hype, as well as trajectories of the police profession can be seen in the framework of a reflection on the green paper recently submitted by this organization. Quebec Police Reality.
Criminal reports or statements issued by the various police forces in Quebec for assembly in a private residence
- Dec. 21 to 27: 132
- December 28 to January 3: 158
- January 4-10: 172
- January 11-17: 371
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