Bordeaux Tackles Rising Crime by Unaccompanied Migrant Minors with Specialized Police Unit

According to the Gironde prefecture, 40% of the delinquency committed in the city in 2020 is attributable to unaccompanied minors (UAMs). The Bordeaux central police station has found an alternative to deal with the delinquency of these minors. This is the implementation of a cell dedicated to UAMs in France. Major Jean-Marc Caillava mobilizes 11 investigators day and night.

"There are kids who come back very regularly in custody for different acts. They give false names, are often under the influence of psychotropic drugs. It’s very difficult to manage. Often they refuse any fingerprinting, explains the police officer. Often we take a picture of the individual, we do facial recognition which allows us, when they are known, to have a different identity and we can prove that this individual has another alias and is an adult," he said to France info.

The Bordeaux police cell is working to better identify these foreign young people who have arrived illegally in France and to help them get out of the grip of drug trafficking networks. The work of the cell is already bearing fruit. "Six people were able to be arrested. We identified two establishments that were in fact a support for the main receiver, recounts the divisional commissioner Céline Plumail. A bar in which the exchanges of objects, of loot took place with the thieves and also a telephone shop. We feel that it calms things down." "We really felt, following our operations, that we have disorganized the system in place. We still have fewer unaccompanied minors or claiming to be so in Bordeaux," she added.

The Bordeaux town hall is also playing its part. Sid, a mediator, tries to help these minors, most of whom are 13 years old and have come from Algeria or Morocco. "They steal to finance the nights in squats and refuse the hand we hold out to them," says the mediator Sid. The city shelters them in foster homes of the child welfare services (ASE). Theresa, a psychologist, also provides support to these minors. "They don’t have papers, they don’t have a good situation, they can’t envision anything behind or for the future. It’s very difficult to get them to stop [drugs]," she says.