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Denis Szabo

Deux modalités de la peine et leurs effets sur le criminel

Maurice Cusson
AbstractTWO TYPES OF PUNISHMENTAND THEIR EFFECT ON THE CRIMINALThe examination of the immediate, spontaneous social reaction of groups towards deviants makes it possible to distinguish two very different types of punishment : corrective and stigmatizing. Corrective punishment is a measure intended to change the behaviour of a delinquent and to maintain him within the group. Stigmatizing punishment consists of attaching a dishonourable label to the delinquent and rejecting him from the group to which he belongs. When a person who is receptive to the influence of his group undergoes corrective punishment, his most probable reaction will be to conform to the expectations of his group. But if he is subjected to stigmatizing punishment, there is a possibility that he will interiorize the criminal identity attributed to him. He will then enter into conflict with the group and with others, and will tend to become integrated into a criminal group and become a recidivist criminal.A study of recidivism, conducted on the basis of concepts of correction and stigmatization, makes it possible to formulate the following two propositions : 1) an individual who is easily influenced by his group will have a greater tendency to recidivate if, over a substantial period of time, the predominant reaction to his offenses is one of stigmatization. He will have less of a tendency to recidivate if the predominant reaction to his offenses is corrective ; 2) penal measures influence recidivism, not directly, but through the agency of the immediate social reaction. The penal measures start a process of stigmatization from the outset, which has an effect on the probability of recidivism.The concepts of correction and stigmatization are also useful in the study of the evolution of penal measures. They make two other propositions possible : 3) the more complex societies become, the less the State tends to resort to stigmatizing punishment and the more it resorts to corrective punishment ; 4) imprisonment is a punishment which was developed during a period of transition during which stigmatizing punishment was losing out in favour of corrective punishment. It is a mixed measure which attempts to reach a compromise between stigmatization and correction. Because it contains elements that are incompatible, the prison will eventually fall into disuse.At the level of action, the distinction between corrective punishment makes it possible to resolve seemingly insurmountable difficulties within the framework of the present ideology of treatment. It leads to the recognition of this basic fact, that all social reaction to an act that is disapproved of is a punishment, and care must be taken to safeguard the rights of thedelinquent, even when we claim to be treating him. Furthermore, this concept leads to the admission that all punishment is liable to contain elements of stigmatization. Only measures that are strictly necessary should therefore be applied to the delinquent, for fear of releasing, in an excess of zeal, a process of stigmatization that will only accentuate the delinquent's anti-social tendencies.

Criminal Law and its Influence upon Normative Integration

Bostjan Zupanćić
RésuméINFLUENCE DE LA JUSTICE CRIMINELLE SUR L'INTEGRATION NORMATIVECe document est separe en trois parties : 1) la theorie de la peine ; 2) l'aspect psychologique de l'integration normative ; 3) l'aspect sociologique de l'integration normative. Il trace les grandes lignes des propositions suivantes.1. L'ordre social engendre l'anomie, si la structure sociale et la conscience sociale dominante ne correspondent pas au degre de developpement de la societe.2. L'anomie affecte la societe dans son ensemble, mais l'intensite du processus anomique varie selon les divergences entre les interets d'une strate sociale particuliere et les interets representes par la justice criminelle.3. Le processus anomique demontre la necessite du changement dans la structure normative de la societe. Il ne reussit pas cependant a faire la difference entre les normes socialement utiles et celles qui ne le sont pas.4. La structure sociale normative dominante est un systeme fortement articule. Comme tel il ne peut changer que dans son ensemble et non pas de facon partielle. Le choix doit etre fait, soit de la defendre comme un tout, ou de ne pas la defendre du tout.5. La structure normative, a ce moment doit etre defendue en tant que tout, particulierement parce que le processus anomique l'attaque en tant que tout.6. Le droit penal influence les sentiments collectifs a travers la peine. Plus le sentiment collectif est intense plus il est renforce par la punition. Si cette intensite n'est pas assez forte, la peine ne fera que dissimuler l'anomie ou meme catalysera le processus anomique.7. L'influence de la peine n'est pertinente qu'en fonction des citoyens qui respectent les lois, parce que c'est la que le sentiment collectif est suffisamment intense.8. Le manque d'identification au systeme normatif dominant a affecte la theorie sociale et ceux qui sont charges de faire respecter la loi. Cette tendance liee a la concentration de l'attention sur des delinquants, produit ou tend a produire une application de la justice criminelle moralement neutre.9. Si nous voulons que la peine ait une influence positive sur l'integration normative, si nous voulons que la peine soutienne le sentiment collectif il faudrait que sa connotation morale soit preservee.10. Toutefois, la peine n'est pas une solution au probleme de l'anomie. Dans le systeme de justice actuel, elle peut le diriger vers differents secteurs de la vie sociale ou le forcer a changer. Devant les besoins toujours plus grands de changement des valeurs et structures sociales, ses buts devraient etre de defendre les valeurs sociales de base qui expriment les besoins de la societe entiere. Cependant elle ne peut defendre ces valeurs qu'en defendant le systeme normatif dans son entier, l'anomie ne pouvant se developper dans certains secteurs sans affecter les points vitaux de la structure normative.11. En consequence l'application de la justice criminelle aura necessairement un effet ambivalent : elle intensifiera l'integration normative de certaines normes a l'interieur de certains secteurs de la societe, et en meme temps elle augmentera Panomie de certaines normes dans d'autres strates sociales.

Réactions sociales à la déviance : une étude exploratoire

Marc LeBlanc and Nguyen Thi-Hau
AbstractSOCIAL REACTION TO DEVIANCE : AN EXPLORATORY STUDYThe object of this exploratory study is to analyse social reactions to deviance by endeavouring to show some of the mechanisms of these re-actions. To do this, we have isolated deviant behaviour from its situational elements in order to study the fluctuations of reactions according to the nature of the deviance, and according to the categories of those reacting to the deviance.The instrument of measurement is a questionnaire which was administered to a random sample for pre-testing. This sample was drawn from the metropolitan region of Montreal. The data analysis is concerned with the degree of generality, consensus, consistency and contingency of reactions in terms of the nature of the deviant behaviour.The results showed the reactions to be surprisingly general. The regularity of the continuum drawn by the indices of contingency and those of strictly punitive consensus was remarkable.This exploratory study gives interested researchers information on crime-deviance continuums and social reactions to deviance. The continuum of social reactions is clearly defined, and this gives us reason to believe it would be possible to introduce an order of importance in the evaluation of social reactions.

La dimension cachée : introduction à des programmes de rééducation en milieu libre

Daniel Marineau
Abstract«THE HIDDEN DIMENSION : THE CIRCULAR INDEX» AN INTRODUCTION TO RE-EDUCATION PROGRAMS WITHIN THE COMMUNITYIt was in seeking to define and operationalize the prevention of juvenile delinquency that we discovered the circular index. First we will describe the method we followed in a clinical experiment and study on the marginal adolescent as he interacts with his school environment. Then we discuss our new understanding. Instead of seeing the social reality piecemeal, we saw it as a whole. There always seems to be a greater and greater distance between the evaluation in the form of detection, psycho-social and criminological evaluation and the supportive programs we are trying to elaborate and apply for reeducation within the community.The nosographic school is represented by the work of Hochman (1971). He asks whether this school has not reached its limits; he doubts its descriptive and prescriptive value. Nonetheless, we ask him to give us time, for to answer categorically in the affirmative can have grave consequences for a country or a province. While agreeing that our clinical and research theory belongs to a part of the nosographical school, it is not so much its descriptive and prescriptive value that is in question as the relationship between the two entities.This is why we are making a brief inventory of the outside restraints on our own clinical thinking. Among these, there is the lack of time available to the practitioner, his lack of resources, his inability to refer to the past, the difficulty of sharing his experience with that of others in a scientific manner, the mobility and uncertainty of the practitioner, etc.Second, we raise a number of restraints which are part of the clinical thinking of the practitioner. Two general types of restraints are described. The first refers to the different theoretical frames of reference of the practitioner, the second particularly concerns his work methods.Third, we place the linear index against the circular index. The linear index is defined as any evidence by which the first characteristic questions the individual's relations with abstract entities. The circular index is defined as any evidence attributed to an individual in relation to systems and groups. As to the systematizing of the circular index, we will have to wait another few months. Nevertheless, an example of the circular index is given through the study of a negative gang in the neighbourhood.The last part of the article deals with palliatives that can be used to reduce internal and external restraints on the clinical thinking and can but encourage this dialectic between the descriptive and prescriptive elements of the nosographic school. Among these palliatives, there is an urgent need to make an inventory of circular indices, to put them in order and to find the best methods to obtain them. In addition, a clinical table_mjist be constructed connecting the different resource items the practitioner needs to apply various supportive programs within the community once the accent is placed on rehabilitation, socialization and or the clinical prevention of the behaviour, and or the structure of the marginal personality.As a last palliative, we describe a way in which we give the client the evaluation we have made of him, explaining to him his behavioural and psychodynamic profile. For us, the aim of this last palliative is not only to evince greater respect for the client, but also to recognize his potential participation in his own program of treatment.

Crime and Criminal Justice in the Developing Countries: Summary of the Discussions of the Vth International Symposium in Comparative Criminology, Santa Margherita di Ligure (Italy) May 16–May 18 1973

Samir Rizkalla