FRANCE:The case of a paedophile who raped a boy on release from jail having been prescribed Viagra by a prison doctor has caused outrage, writes Lara Marlowein Paris.
French police are searching for other victims of Francis Evrard (61), the convicted paedophile who is accused of kidnapping and raping a five-year-old boy last week.
Evrard's case, which seems to epitomise the failure of the French judiciary and prison system to reform paedophiles, has prompted President Nicolas Sarkozy to announce drastic new measures this week.
"During my life, I've known about 40 children, but I was only convicted for three," Evrard told police interrogators in Lille, according to Le Parisien.
"It's impossible to know whether he raped 40 children," a policeman explained to the newspaper. "It could have been other acts such as fondling or exhibitionism. We are going to run a fine-tooth comb through his life to find other victims if there are any."
Evrard was released from prison in Caen, Normandy, on July 2nd after serving 18 years of a 27-year sentence for the rape of two little boys. He was supposed to be under surveillance, but gave a false address and was living in a garage when he abducted little Enis Kokacurt.
Evrard had a partly used packet of Viagra when he was caught. It had been prescribed by a prison doctor. Two-thirds of the prisoners in Caen are sex offenders, but the doctor said he had no access to Evrard's prison record.
"I am sickened, indignant," Mustafa Kokacurt, Enis's father, said after meeting Mr Sarkozy at the Élysée Palace. "Instead of curing this pervert, they turned him loose and made it easier for him to feed his urge." Mr Sarkozy is in tune with public outrage. "I want to act as if he [ the victim] was someone from my own family," he says.
Henceforward, paedophiles will be required to serve their entire sentence and will not benefit from early release for good behaviour, the French president said. Even then, they will be freed only if a committee of doctors conclude they are no longer dangerous.
Otherwise, they will be sent to a purpose-built prison hospital for paedophiles, the first of which will open in Lyon in 2009. If prisoners accept "chemical castration" (hormone treatment to reduce their sex drive), they may be allowed out, on condition they wear an electronic bracelet. About one quarter of prisoners in France have been convicted of sexual offences.
The great unanswered question is why Evrard was released in the first place. Le Figaro newspaper yesterday published excerpts from a tape-recorded conversation with Evrard in prison earlier this year. "They're giving me a hard time for a photo I had in my cell for years," the convict complained.
He had been punished for four days for possessing a photograph that showed a child of about five, completely naked, with its head between its legs, looking towards the camera.
"Kids turn me on!" Evrard continued. "So what? That doesn't mean I'm going to screw one when I get out."
A prison guard told L'Humanité newspaper that Evrard "said he wanted to go to countries where it's easy to get children". The doctor who examined him in June noted "a risk of repetition . . . the absence of guilt or a sense of morality" and "the patient's refusal to undergo treatment". Evrard was deemed "dangerous and not easily reintegrated".
Sarkozy's measures have been criticised by some lawyers, doctors and newspapers. The Socialist Party says sex offenders should be treated during their imprisonment, not after. In the past decade, three French laws have strengthened punishment of sexual delinquents. They include enhanced post-prison surveillance, a law enabling judges to require the use of electronic bracelets, and a requirement that repeat offenders will require psychiatric treatment.
Philippe Carrière, a psychiatrist who worked for 10 years in French prisons, says there is a shortage of 800 psychiatrists and only one reintegration and probation councillor for every 100 prisoners. Prisoners who request psychiatric help must wait three months to see a doctor. "And politicians say sexual delinquents must be 'forced' to undergo treatment in prison!" Mr Carrière says ironically.
Mr Sarkozy's measures will raise serious legal, moral, ethical and constitutional problems by imprisoning people long after they've completed their sentences, Le Monde warns. "How can we believe that a new law will solve the problem, when present measures are so little and poorly enforced, in particular for lack of means?" the newspaper asks.