Study on representations of PPSMJ by professionals. The contribution of social psychology to better care for persons placed under court (PPSMJ)

The present article studies the representation of the persons under the hand of justice by the legal professionals in charge. A comparison among the concerned establishments has been made. We assume that the relationships with the offenders vary depending on whether it is with policemen, psychiatrists, probation officers or social workers, as their duties with the delinquents are different. A field study has been carried out with the help of semi-structured interviews that we used for discourse and content analysis allowing us to reveal the characteristics of the social interactions by vocations. Generally speaking, policemen tend to keep distance from the offenders; while psychiatrist, abide by medical confidentiality, are focused on therapy. Probation officers are in-between their social and repressive roles; whereas social workers put a lot into the relationship with the offenders they are in charge of, leaving behind the reason of their marginalization. The representations of the offenders made by the different workers reveal the need for a comparison of the depiction of these workers and the expectations of the offenders they are dealing with; so as to propose recommendations to reduce the highlighted gap between them and in order to improve the relationship with the different players of the interaction. (C) 2017 Societe Franyaise de Psychologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.