Looking for balance
The security guards are the first contact with the centre. Nobody gets in with out having checked in with them at their bullet proof window. It is the security guards job to register all asylum seekers as well as look for any clues about the person life, origins and their trip that may help the interviewer make his or her decision. The security guards filter everything that comes into the centre. They search the asylum seekers every time they come back and confiscate any forbidden items: cameras, mobile phones, nail clippers, pens, food and drink and obviously any drugs or weapons.
Inside the centre where they are in charge of security 24/7, almost all activities are supervised by a guard. Their role is to enforce discipline, a delicate task which is supervised by the chief security officer who is experienced and favours mediation. His philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: The perpetual quest for right balance between force and communication. When the situation is delicate the security guard can not be friends with the asylum seeker but he can not either use brutal force. If he is to kind they don’t respect him and if he is brutal it creates resentment and anger. There is a lot of tension and everyone is on a short fuse.
Despite their efforts to keep the peace, violence is just below the surface but because they are private security guards their power is limited. Outside the centre it is the police who intervene.
Mr. Claude, in charge of the security guards
“Here I’m on holiday all year. With all these populations it is a microcosm with in my village. I have another life, a different way of seeing things. What I learn here, I can use at home. When my son ask me for 200 hundred-franc sneakers I tell him about the kids who show up here in the middle of winter with sandals or with no coat.
I live in Vallorbe. At first people were not happy that I work at the centre but I told them to visit the centre before judging. Here there are not only criminals. There are some but you shouldn’t put them all in the same boat. Here the term asylum seeker says it all. They are completely racist. The mayor absolutely wants to close the centre. He doesn’t care if it is good for the local businesses or not. The 200 asylum seekers bring a lot of money to the town.
You have to like people to work here. Those who are racist, and we have had some racist guards, don’t last long. Either they leave of there own free will or I kick them out. We had one recently, every search turned into a fight.
I used to work in a prison. It’s better here. The relationships with people are more enriching. Sometimes the humane aspect annoys me though because I can’t resolve the situation. For me the way to resolve a conflict is not to throw someone out by force. I don’t like violence.
When there is a fight between two people I ask them to follow me outside. I separate them, have a smoke and talk to one of them. Then I talk to the other. After I try to bring them together this almost always works.
That is my way of seeing things and that is what I impose on my colleagues. That doesn’t mean that we don’t intervene physically, but it happens rarely. When it is necessary we do it. We have to be able to impose ourselves physically. We have to show them right from the start that they are not in charge here; we are, after that things calm down.
You would need a year to live what we live inside the centre in just one day. It’s like being in a movie. I have conflicts that I don’t have outside but I also witness some beautiful things. Not to long ago an asylum seeker lay down on the train tracks. We talked for an hour and managed to get him to come to the centre. It was a personal victory to convince someone who had nothing to lose to hang on to something.
Since the last vote it has been more difficult to live in the centre. The asylum seekers stay for 60 days and there is a lot of tension, for us and for them. Now we have mass fights that break out which was quite rare in the past. There used to be some fights between ethnic groups but nothing major. Now we are seeing mass fights in all of the five centres in Switzerland. It is a way of releasing the tension that the asylum seekers feel. You feel it straight away, it’s tense, and people look at each other differently.”
Mr. Sebastien, security guard
"I wanted to be a professional soldier but then there was “Army XXI” and I prefered to left the army. I signed up to be a police officer or Securitas. Securitas answered first.
I started by making rounds but quickly grew sick of that because there was never any action. I worked at football games but that was just once a week and that’s not enough. I like unpredictable situations; the harder it is the more I like it. Dealing with conflict situations gives me experience. I don’t look for a fight but if one breaks out I’m there! Before coming to the centre apart from verbal conflicts I didn’t know much, here I’ve learnt what my limits are.
It used to be the guards who were in charge of rooming arrangements. We would separate people so that friends who arrived together were not given the same room. If you put one on the 3rd floor and the other on the 4th floor it stops them from grouping together and starting problems. An asylum seeker alone will rarely start trouble but when they are two or three they think they are the kings and they want to show you they are stronger than you. You ask them for their papers and they refuse to show them! They are rebels.
If an asylum seeker needs to let it out, ok, he can speak. They come to us and talk, talk and talk some more. The problem is that the next day they think we’re friends. But no, we’re here to work and we have to show respect to each other”.
It’s a registration centre and we carry out searches. It may look friendly but things can easily go wrong. Every time I search someone I think of the worst that could happen. I don’t want to say they are guilty but I always tell myself to be careful. Let’s say I’m searching one of them and I find a knife, he’s going to try to stab me. It could happen this evening, tomorrow, tonight. That’s what I like about this job is that it can happen at any moment. We are targets; we wear the uniforms so we are the first they aim for."
"The less I fight the better I feel."
"However you have to stay alert it’s a high risk job."
