Du côté des victimes, une autre perspective sur le vol à main armée

Armed robbery has long been regarded as a crime against property. But from the victim's point of view, it is a violent crime which endangers their lives and constitutes a traumatic experience. Nine years of research are briefly summarized with special attention to a recent survey of victims of commercial robbery in Montreal in which 440 persons were interviewed. It is difficult to describe a victim unless researchers agree on some basic definition of who should be defined as a victim. This is the first subject of discussion. After a short description of the way victimizations occur, the consequences of the robbery are discussed, and the responses of the mental health and justice systems are presented. Most victims do not resist and those who do so seem to be reacting to past victimizations or to an excess of violence on the part of the robber. Nearly 90 % of victims suffer some kind of emotional trauma and far from being helped in this regard, this trauma is often aggravated by the criminal justice system's response. It seems to affect the victim much more than the financial, physical and social consequences of the crime, which had little effect on their attitudes and needs. The main problem with armed robbery is that it creates and perpetuates a climate of suspicion, fear and anger very damaging to social relationships. These negative effects can be reduced, however, and the study points out some of the means by which this can be accomplished

Le vieillissement et l'appréhension du phénomène criminel

Etude, à l'échelle canadienne, des attitudes des personnes âgées vis-à-vis du phénomène criminel, dans le contexte général de leur vie quotidienne, et de l'évaluation qu'elles en font. Le rapport cherche à connaître les craintes, les opinions et les expériences du troisième et du quatrième âge eu égard à la criminalité et à son contrôle.Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines (CRSH

Vivre en résidence : les témoignages des personnes âgées

Etude de l'opinion des personnes âgées vivant dans un milieu institutionnel, public ou privé. Les objectifs généraux de la recherche sont de mieux connaître les valeurs, les attitudes et les attentes des personnes âgées, plus particulièrement en regard des conditions de vie en résidence et de découvrir la fréquence et la nature des abus exercés à leur l'endroit.Ministère du Solliciteur général du Canada; Ministère québécois de la Santé et des Services sociau

Allelic Diversity of the Plasmodium falciparum Erythrocyte Membrane Protein 1 Entails Variant-Specific Red Cell Surface Epitopes

The clonally variant Plasmodium falciparum PfEMP1 adhesin is a virulence factor and a prime target of humoral immunity. It is encoded by a repertoire of functionally differentiated var genes, which display architectural diversity and allelic polymorphism. Their serological relationship is key to understanding the evolutionary constraints on this gene family and rational vaccine design. Here, we investigated the Palo Alto/VarO and IT4/R29 and 3D7/PF13_003 parasites lines. VarO and R29 form rosettes with uninfected erythrocytes, a phenotype associated with severe malaria. They express an allelic Cys2/group A NTS-DBL1α1 PfEMP1 domain implicated in rosetting, whose 3D7 ortholog is encoded by PF13_0003. Using these three recombinant NTS-DBL1α1 domains, we elicited antibodies in mice that were used to develop monovariant cultures by panning selection. The 3D7/PF13_0003 parasites formed rosettes, revealing a correlation between sequence identity and virulence phenotype. The antibodies cross-reacted with the allelic domains in ELISA but only minimally with the Cys4/group B/C PFL1955w NTS-DBL1α. By contrast, they were variant-specific in surface seroreactivity of the monovariant-infected red cells by FACS analysis and in rosette-disruption assays. Thus, while ELISA can differentiate serogroups, surface reactivity assays define the more restrictive serotypes. Irrespective of cumulated exposure to infection, antibodies acquired by humans living in a malaria-endemic area also displayed a variant-specific surface reactivity. Although seroprevalence exceeded 90% for each rosetting line, the kinetics of acquistion of surface-reactive antibodies differed in the younger age groups. These data indicate that humans acquire an antibody repertoire to non-overlapping serotypes within a serogroup, consistent with an antibody-driven diversification pressure at the population level. In addition, the data provide important information for vaccine design, as production of a vaccine targeting rosetting PfEMP1 adhesins will require engineering to induce variant-transcending responses or combining multiple serotypes to elicit a broad spectrum of immunity

Assistance aux victimes et justice pénale

Baril Micheline. Assistance aux victimes et justice pénale. In: Déviance et société. 1981 - Vol. 5 - N°3. pp. 277-282