School bullying: why judges often find themselves at an impasse

School bullying why judges often find themselves at an impasse

On January 7, just one week after classes resumed, Lucas decided to end his life. Before taking action, this 13-year-old teenager, educated in 4th grade in an establishment in Golbey, in the Vosges, wrote a note in his diary explaining his desire to commit suicide. The mockery, criticism and insults he had suffered since the start of the school year in September, in particular because of his homosexuality, were, according to his mother, “the trigger” for his death. A theory validated by the preliminary investigation opened on January 12 by the public prosecutor of Epinal for “harassment of a 15-year-old minor” and “school harassment”, which concluded with the custody of four minors from 13 years. These two girls and these two boys, educated in the same college as Lucas, admitted to the police “having repeatedly made fun of their comrade”. Presumed innocent, they will be the subject of an assessment by the Judicial Protection of Youth (PJJ), before being judged by the children’s court of Epinal for “school harassment having led to the suicide of the victim”.

This specific offence, created less than a year ago by the law of March 2, 2022 aimed at combating school bullying, is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros – half as much if the alleged perpetrators are minors. “But in this type of business, very delicate, the educational always takes precedence over the repressive”, advances Aurélien Martini, deputy secretary general of the Union of magistrates (USM) and head of the minors section of the Melun prosecution. (Seine et Marne). “We often deal with kids who do not realize the impact of their behavior on their victims”, assures the deputy prosecutor, without absolving these young people of responsibility. “We must make them aware of the seriousness of the facts, while graduating the penalties.”

Because the situation of harassment suffered by Lucas is far from isolated. According a study by Ifop published in March 2021, 41% of French people report having experienced at least one act of repeated and continuous verbal, physical or psychological violence in the school context. Among them, 38% specify that their abuse lasted more than a year, 76% that this phenomenon was part of a group dynamic, and 48% that they never spoke of this abuse to anyone. either. But while 12% of victims say they have committed one or more suicide attempts, Aurélien Martini testifies to the “complexity” of the judicialization of some of these cases. “Often, cases are based on the perception of each other. Without evidence and without witnesses, you can quickly find yourself in an impasse.”

“Loss or deletion of items”

The law of March 2, 2022 is however clear on the definition of school harassment, which it characterizes by “repeated remarks or behavior” against a student by any other person studying or exercising a professional activity in the same establishment. , “having as its object or effect a degradation of his living conditions”, and resulting in particular in an “impairment of his physical or mental health”. Defending several victims or families of victims of school bullying, lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion describes a well-oiled mechanism, which is repeated almost identically in each file: “There are generally three to five leaders who imprint the dynamism, what attracts the rest of the group. Often it can be the whole class, including those who participate silently without reacting.”

If the trigger differs according to the victims – sexual attraction, weight, level of income, behavior deemed “different” – the acts of harassment are always the same. Insults of all kinds, jostling, pettiness (such as hiding things or even urinating on some of them), isolation, daily humiliations… Most often reinforced by persistent harassment on social networks.

But when these acts take place discreetly in class, between lessons, during recess or in front of the establishment, without direct witnesses or without physical evidence, how can harassment be characterized in court? And while text messages, photos or voice messages can be deleted in seconds on WhatsApp or Snapchat, and sent anonymously, how to ensure that the perpetrators will be properly apprehended by investigators? “It is the most difficult”, recognizes Me Boutron-Marmion, who denounces in certain cases “a lack of will” and “the slowness” of the judicial institution, resulting in “the loss or the deletion of various elements”. For an ongoing case, in which she defends the family of a young girl who committed suicide in September 2021 after several months of school harassment, the lawyer deplores, for example, a laptop analysis carried out by the investigators “a year after death of the victim”, and a “clear and thoughtful defense mechanism” on the part of the harassers in question, who would now repeat “almost to the word” the same speech.

“Teenage Honor Code”

According to the magistrates interviewed, this group effect also contributes to the complexity of the analysis of cases by the courts. “The number of perpetrators dilutes individual responsibility, and the offense becomes very difficult to characterize,” says Kim Reuflet, president of the Syndicat de la magistrature and former juvenile judge. “We are in difficulty in a certain number of files, with teenagers who will have sent ‘a single’ message, expressed ‘a single’ remark… And will not have the feeling of having participated in the harassment strictly speaking of the child.” Especially since in cases of harassment, “the law of silence still exists”. “There are adolescent codes of honor: to be clear, many will not swing”, summarizes the magistrate.

To “sort out” all this information, Aurélien Martini nevertheless describes “extremely thorough” investigations by the police or the gendarmes and the prosecution. Study of the victim’s social environment, physical or psychological impacts of harassment, hearings in schools with a specific methodology applied to minors, interviews with teachers, educational staff, school heads, etc. Backed by evaluations of the Childhood social assistance (ASE) with the relatives of the victim and those of the alleged harassers, to ensure that there have been no “difficulties” in the past. “These are heavy and time-consuming investigations,” said the deputy prosecutor of Melun. But which, sometimes, lead to nothing. If the prosecutor considers that there is not enough convincing evidence, or that this evidence does not make it possible to directly link the victim’s suicide to school bullying, the file will be closed without further action.

This was the case, for example, in the case of Marion Fraisse, a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide by hanging in February 2013. Before killing herself in her family home in Essonne, the young girl had also taken care to hang his cell phone at the end of a wire. In a letter left to her relatives, she listed the insults she suffered in college and on social networks. After a complaint against X filed by his parents for “willful violence, death threats, provocation to suicide, manslaughter and failure to provide assistance”, an investigating judge from Evry dismissed the case in 2018, considering that these events “isolated and concerning different people not acting with the same intention” could not characterize a situation of harassment. A decision confirmed by the Court of Cassation. “Since a suicide can be multifactorial, we often fish on the concrete link between death and harassment”, regrets Me Michaël Ghnassia, lawyer at the Court of Cassation and at the Council of State in charge of the file.

Panel of penalties

In the opposite case, as in the Lucas case, several options are available to justice. If the minor in question is under the age of 13, the law provides that he cannot be prosecuted: he will then be heard in a free hearing, and will benefit from educational measures if necessary. From the age of 13, he can be heard in police custody. “The prosecutor studies his background, his age, his personal situation… And according to these elements, he makes his decision”, says Kim Reuflet.

THE brand new juvenile criminal justice code, which entered into force on September 30, 2021, offers different possibilities. The public prosecutor can decide on alternatives to prosecution – such as accountability courses, reparation or educational measures – or, in the most serious cases, can refer the perpetrator to a juvenile judge or a justice of justice. ‘instruction. After a first so-called “guilty” hearing – which rules, as its name suggests, on the guilt or not of the defendants – the defendant will be tried and possibly sentenced a few months later. Between these two hearings, the minor will be subject to a period of “educational probation”, which may include educational measures and security measures (judicial control or, from the age of 16, house arrest with electronic surveillance ).

A few months later, the judge will decide on the sentence, which can range from simple community service to care obligations with a ban on coming into contact with the victim, or in some cases, to prison sentences with suspension and probation. According to Aurélien Martini, these latest convictions remain very rare. But for the most serious cases, it happens that justice is harsh. Last October, three young women and two young men were sentenced before the Caen juvenile court for acts of harassment, complicity in harassment and theft and dissemination of images.

In March 2016, their former classmate Juliette Lebas committed suicide by throwing herself under a train after suffering several waves of harassment, including the massive dissemination of photos of her naked on social networks. She was 15 years old. Minors at the time of the facts, the defendants received suspended prison sentences, ranging from two to four months. One of the victim’s former boyfriends, just of age in 2016, was tried in early January for having sent the famous photos to a high school student with whom Juliette was in conflict. The court will make its decision on February 14, while the prosecution has requested a six-month suspended prison sentence for “complicity in harassment”.

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