Faced with the outbreak of violence in the department, the attorney general of the Court of Appeal of Basse-Terre was the guest of Christelle Théophile, in Guadeloupe Soir, on November 4. He returned to the main cases and files that are making the news.
Since the start of the year, news items in Guadeloupe have taken a worrying turn. Violence in the territory has experienced a dramatic increase with 27 homicides recorded since January, more than half of which were by firearm.
This situation calls into question the local authorities and highlights fundamental issues concerning security on the island.
The courts are the scene of numerous cases of violence: armed robbery, domestic violence, attacks on property and people. The skyrocketing rise in these offenses is an observation shared by Eric Maurel, attorney general at the Court of Appeal of Basse-Terre. “Guadeloupe faces all forms of violence“, he underlines, while recognizing the glaring lack of resources for the police and the judicial system, which are struggling to respond to this emergency situation.
Every year, Operation “Lay Down Your Arms” encourages the population to surrender their weapons without risk of prosecution. Although this initiative allows state services to recover some weapons, it does not appear to target weapons in circulation, which enable numerous criminal acts in the territory.
The recent attack on a prison guard, burned with hot water by an inmate, has brought to the forefront the issue of overcrowding in the island's penitentiary establishments. Eric Maurel expressed his solidarity with prison staff while raising dignity concerns: “We really have problems with dignity in Guadeloupean penitentiary establishments.”
Faced with this situation, instructions were given to prosecutors to reduce the number of detainees sleeping on mattresses on the floor, in order to ensure more respectful detention conditions.
For Eric Maurel, it is essential to work on sentence adjustments in order to reduce incarceration in Guadeloupe, when other solutions are possible.
We are seeing extremely positive developments. Guadeloupe is very well placed, particularly for forced releases, sentence adjustments such as home detention under electronic surveillance known as the electronic bracelet. There is real in-depth work that is producing positive results.
Eric Maurel, Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of Basse-Terre
On November 29, the Basse-Terre Court of Appeal is organizing, in partnership with the Interministerial Mission to Combat Drugs and Addictive Behaviors (MILDECA) and the National School of Magistracy, a conference entitled “Problem-solving justice”. This event aims to present support systems for escaping addiction and delinquency, in order to offer alternatives to punitive justice.
In addition to the violence, the territory also suffered a blackout on October 25 and 26, which plunged the island into a crisis situation. Following this event, an investigation was opened under the direction of the Pointe-à-Pitre public prosecutor.
Eric Maurel confirmed that the blackout could be linked to a death, and investigations are continuing to shed light on the causes and consequences of this outage.
There will be a very large number of people to hear, whether from the employees, the management of the establishment and, of course, many victims, including on the economic level.
Eric Maurel, Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of Basse-Terre
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