be careful, the green brigade is starting to verbalize!
4:04 p.m. by Joris Marin / Photo credit: Sweet FM
Since March 15, the city of Caen has had a green brigade to deal with incivility: throwing cigarette butts, rubbish, uncollected dog droppings… After a period of education, there is room for repression, but not for anything goes. In two months, 25 offenses identified in flagrante delicto. Reportage.
Let’s go for a patrol through Caen, around the town hall. The sharp eye, Fabien and Joffrey, “ASVP” -public road surveillance officers- for the city since 2016, walk between 12 and 20 kilometers per dayaffirmed to manage both paid parking and the green brigade. This brigade, which has been in service for more than two months, aims to find various offenses in terms of incivility : throwing of cigarette butts, rubbish, uncollected dog droppings… Because few things are enough to harm both the pleasure and the appearance of a street, a square or a green space. The same is true for household trash cans taken out outside the hours set for collection or illegal dumping of bulky items. The two ASVPs are equipped with fatigue pants, a means of communication with a radio connected to the municipal police command center, but also a mobile phone to report and even… a bulletproof vest ! On this Tuesday, May 31, after only 300 meters of wandering, we came across dog poo. But, no verbalization, because no flagrante delicto.
Pedagogy before repression
Officers Fabien and Joffrey do not pull out the ticket book at all costs: “The goal is not to approach people to fine them. We explain things. And three-quarters of the time, it goes well. We try to make them understand that there are trash cans, ashtrays, amenities. Their behavior improves. People need to have an ecological mentality”. Whether the green brigade was created formerly on March 15, a first stage was awarded to pedagogy. “We are now able to repress these offenses, because the agents are assertive. This also makes it possible to empower the people who will adopt these incivilities and reduce behind this form of delinquency but also the bill” explains Christophe Fournier, director of police and urban security for the city of Caen, referring to the sum of million euros: this is the annual cost of these incivilities in the capital of Calvados, to which is added the environmental damage, which is less easy to quantify.
Fines of 35 to 135 euros
The green brigade carries out coordinated operations with urban cleanliness and municipal police officers. Each is likely to bring a certain number of elements to the national police, which will try to identify the perpetrator. The poor presentation of the bins intended for the collection round is punishable by a fine of 35 euros. Count 135 euros for illegal dumping of bulky items, throwing rubbish, cigarette butts or chewing gum, discharge of polluted liquids into the rainwater network, canine droppings or even for urinating on the public highway. Depending on the location, the issues are diverse, as Christophe Fournier explains: “In rue Saint-Martin, we have problems with poor presentation of waste. If you go to a square, perhaps there will be dog excrement. In the alleys near bars and restaurants, we find sometimes people urinating outside. And then, in the vicinity of the station, the flow means that there is a lot of waste, especially cigarette butts”.