SUPERVISION OF MONITORING AND SECURITY STAFF (OPINION) terms of compliance with ethical rules,41 rising tensions among the population held in custody, and in particular increasing recourse on the part of the latter to auto- or hetero-aggressive violence, the fact that this population includes a number of people who have completely lost their way or lack any solid foundations, including psychological reference points, means that it is a different, delicate and sometimes very difficult task for the public sector employees responsible for monitoring and security in such establishments to discharge the missions entrusted to them, regardless of whether they work for the police, the gendarmerie, the customs service or the prison authorities. The relationships maintained with the competent authorities, the themes raised by professional bodies and the confidential interviews widely practiced by the contrôle général at the places it has inspected, all highlight a number of issues causing suffering for employees at work. This is something that is undeniable: it has internal consequences for staff, in terms of the career choices they make, prompting them to turn down jobs that are assumed to be uncomfortable or risky, and gives rise to anxiety regarding a number of situations. 4/ Traditionally, such events are handled within the security services in two ways: firstly via the line-management structure, which is of course responsible for providing functional responses to such difficulties; and secondly via the solidarity which, in the face of real danger, binds together police officers, prison officers, customs officers and gendarmes. It is not the place of the Contrôleur général to pass judgement regarding the current effectiveness of these two mechanisms. He cannot, nor does he wish to interfere in what is a matter either for the responsible authorities or one that concerns how staff work closely together. 5/ Nevertheless, in his view, in order to enhance the quality of the link between working conditions and respect for human rights, the time has come to go further and to systematically implement the practice of supervision of civil servants and military personnel responsible for monitoring and security missions. In his view, this is relevant to three developments: a more general initiative being promoted right across the civil service, as evidenced by the November 2009 agreement on health and safety at work; to plans set out at ministerial level (e.g. the 41 N.B. decrees passed in 1986 and 2010 imposing a code of ethics on the French police force and prison service respectively. 95