The reflections of participants in a 1979 international colloquium of the dangerousness concept held under the auspices of the Louvain school of criminology are summarized.
Critical examination of the notion of dangerousness requires analysis of the concepts of the dangerous personality, of the dangerous situation, and of the image of the dangerous individual. Psychologists argue that mental disturbances do not constitute grounds for 'dangerousness.' Furthermore, personality factors are of little importance in determining the dangerousness of imprisoned convicts. Criminologists who link crime with individual inability to adapt to a variety of social roles would like to see the concept of dangerousness replaced with criminalization of certain behavior. Moreover, dangerous situations may actually be closely associated with social and law enforcement structures which create the situations. Official portrayal of a 'dangerous individual' is rejected in many circles because it labels individuals with unconscious conflicts between the socially maladjusted real self and the imaginary self rather than helping them resolve tensions. In criminal policy, the concept of dangerousness has pragmatic origins in North America: a number of laws impose life-long or indeterminate sentences for repeaters, mentally deficient individuals, and sexual psychopaths. Criticisms have been directed against such laws because of the questionable validity of psychiatric diagnosis and of indeterminate sentences, and because of the length and costliness of procedures applied largely to petty offenders. Traditional theories of culpability and dangerousness have a common basis; the presupposed norm. As a result, essential questions regarding values to be protected, the nature of the mechanisms of domination, and the justification of social behavior according to alternative values have been neglected. It is concluded that the confusion surrounding the concept of dangerousness can be eliminated with a different organization of perspectives and social compromise between the individual and society, stressing tolerance of social differences. Criminology must become a science whose objectivity resides in a balance between theory and immediate critique of the facts. Cooperative work is needed between criminologists and penologists on the use of laws as an instrument of power and on the justification of protection for select social groups. --in French.