La déclaration de la victime au tribunal : évaluation de l’expérience du Palais de Justice de Montréal

In October 1987, an experimental program was introduced in the Montreal Law Courts, inviting victims of crime and personal attack, as well as victims of burglary, to inform the Court of the consequences they suffered because of these acts; the program was called the Déclaration de la victime. An evaluative study of this experiment was initiated at the same time. The article presents some results : the response of the victims when offered the opportunity of taking part in the judicial debate, the content of the declarations, their use by the members of the Court, their possible influence on the proceedings and on the judicial decisions

La sécurité privée : le phénomène, la contreverse, l’avenir

This article deals with four themes on private security. First, private security is defined as a protection supplied to organizations targeting the specific needs of any given organization. Second, the expansion of private security is seen as resulting from the convergence between a real demand for security and a superior supply than the one offered by the police. Third, the article deals with questions regarding private security involving private live-Finally, it is argued that the future of private security lies in two trends : (1) technologicial integration and (2) sophisticated planning and problem solving

Les zones urbaines criminelles

The study of criminal areas has been a longstanding tradition in sociology and criminology. It had its hour of glory during the publication of the works of Shaw and McKay of the University of Chicago. In this article — which is an account of the studies on the concentration of criminals in urban areas — we show that, since the XIXth century, large metropolises have relatively stable sectors where the social control is weak and opportunities to commit crimes are numerous. Networks of juvenile delinquents and adult criminals develop in these areas, fostering the transmission of criminal solutions. The article contains a description of the process that leads to the emergence of a crime zone. It ends with a critique on ecological studies and by an appeal for the study of conflicts within these criminal networks

L’homicide conjugal à Montréal, ses raisons, ses conditions et son déroulement

Conjugal homicide is a situation where one person murders another person with whom he or she is involved through a matrimonial, quasi-matrimonial or other romantic relationship, the study of this type of homicide is based on the entirety of conjugal murders known to police (77) and committed in different municipalities on the island of Montreal during two time periods, namely 1954 to 1962 and 1985 to 1989. The great majority of these crimes are committed by a man onto a woman. Analyses show that possessiveness — understood to be the desire of one person to exclusively control the other — is by far the reason which leads a man to murder the woman he supposedly loves. However, this desire to possess or control is not in itself sufficient for a man to execute his criminal activity, since a number of conditions must coexist : the woman questions her relationship with the man ; the man may physically strike the woman ; the man has the advantage of greater physical strength; the period of time involved is sufficiently lengthy allowing the crisis to develop and enter its critical phase and finally, the perpetrator succeeds in surpassing the inhibitions which initially impede one from killing another