The Cops Lives Matter is born

Women and men in law enforcement remain in the background, if not on the margins, of the security debate, which is passionately covered by the media in a perspective focused on political dialectics. At the same time, judicial chronicles limit themselves to reiterating the theses contained in preliminary investigation acts, or reporting on the outcomes of trials. Thus, there is a lack of critical analysis of the criminal justice system. If we were to consider productivity, some skepticism should arise when we observe the impressive number of criminal proceedings that end in dismissals, acquittals, or due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.

To those who might argue that the topic does not appear relevant to the interests of law enforcement, it would be easy to reply that, unfortunately, thousands of police officers, carabinieri, finance guards, and prison police officers are registered in the criminal record every year. Circumstances that, precisely because of what was previously stated, are emphasized in the media, without, however, the same media attention being devoted to these events when, as happens in almost all cases, their innocence is confirmed regarding the original allegations.

This lack of concern, merely moral in nature, is actually the least worrying. For those who wear a uniform, being subject to a criminal proceeding is the beginning of a series of tangible hardships such as the freezing of seniority promotions, precautionary removal from the position for which the investigations were initiated, and, last but not least, the appointment of a lawyer which entails significant financial expenses. This happens when, according to the current legal framework, both the possible granting of an advance and the reimbursement at the end of the proceeding are subject to a cumbersome procedure that, in the best-case scenario, imposes extremely long waiting times.

From our observation, we have found that the State Advocacy Office routinely reduces the fees submitted for reimbursement. Furthermore, even in cases of acquittal, it rejects the reimbursement request, even arguing, as has recently happened, that a dubious formula was used, although as anyone who practices law knows well, such aberrant institute was removed from the legal system with the reform of the procedural code that came into force in 1989.

In other words, a police officer who ends up on trial, no matter how affirmed their innocence, is burdened with economic consequences and painful sufferings that find no form of redress in the system.

Aside from this, we believe it is urgent to reconsider the criteria for the application of precautionary measures, which are increasingly ordered against members of law enforcement and seem to be imagined more as an anticipated sentence than to respond to the actual need to prevent the alleged crime from reoccurring. Talking about precautionary needs years after the alleged conduct, and perhaps when the individual has already been moved to another position and is therefore no longer able, even if willing, to replicate the reprehensible behaviors ascribed, is a contradiction in terms that not many seem to be passionate about. An even more serious disharmony when compared to the conclusion of the process in favor of the accused, which, as mentioned earlier, is anything but exceptional.

A separate chapter deserves to be dedicated to the different issue of violence and assaults perpetrated against law enforcement. On the one hand, as incredulous as this may seem, rehabilitative care resulting from on-duty injuries receives no coverage. If it were just a matter of paying the usual medical fees, it would be a fairly bearable problem. However, when it becomes necessary to turn to specialists for therapies that are not provided by the national health service, or for which there are still eternal waiting times, uniformed personnel have no choice but to dip into their own wallets to return to work as soon as possible. A concern that might surprise only those who do not know that being absent from duty means losing hundreds of euros per month in allowances.

Here too, the numbers are eloquent. From data retrieved from the relevant administrations, it is estimated, conservatively, that there are around 3000 on-duty injuries among law enforcement officers every year, an average of about 8 per day. Injuries that are mostly attributable to others’ violence, with almost no chance of hoping to recover, in whole or in part, the damages suffered, given that the antagonists are mostly insolvent.

To the damage is added insult because while the judiciary demonstrates a peculiar zeal in prosecuting cases against uniformed personnel, it shows much less dedication in prosecuting those who assault them. We do not have certified data, but we can assert based on empirical knowledge that, except in cases where arrests are made on the spot, crimes committed against law enforcement officers almost always go unpunished. And even when a conviction is reached, it is little more than symbolic, as it usually results in only a few months of imprisonment, well below the threshold for actual incarceration.

The lack of a response from the State to those who assault its frontline representatives, and the lack of effectiveness of the punishment, ends up encouraging deviant behavior, fueling a spiral of violence that also affects all other workers in helping professions, starting from hospital emergency room staff, to teachers and school principals.

As much as it may not seem necessary, we do not believe we are making daring evaluations if we affirm that the loss of any authority of the penal system ultimately compromises every form of deterrence, even in the context of violence within families or among acquaintances, which then leads to the dramatic statistics of femicides.