Stigmatization of Threatening and Strategies of Situational Prevention in Gecamines Factories of Shituru (To Likasi, in the Katanga, in DRC)

Many studies on the labeling in different institutions (hospital, prison, psychiatric center. . . ) in various application fields (health, unemployment, ethnic origin, profession. . . ) report perverse effects of stigma on the stigmatized persons, in particular the amplification of the deviance or the reproduction of delinquent behavior. This article goes into this theoretical scheme while focusing on the policing of an industrial mining site. As part of the approach of the qualitative approach, the data of this survey were collected in the Gcamines factories of Shituru (in Likasi, DRC) via the direct observations, carried out with different positions, and thirteen interviews including eight with the police and the private security guards and five with the inhabitants who are near the factories. The field trip lasted nine months from November 2007 to August 2018. The results of this research show the beneficial aspects of labeling on the authors of stigmatization when, through the stigmata built on the basis of certain physical, social and intellectual characteristics of threatening as well as their different operating modes, the guards - producers of labels - perceive and attempt to elude, to manage the risks that undermine the space to be protected. In this case, the co-producers security officers adapt and readapt their situational prevention strategies.