Individu dangereux et situations dangereuses : les représentations sociales de la dangerosité chez les citoyens, les magistrats et les surveillants de prison

The notion of “dangerousness” takes an increasing importance currently at the level of the Justice, magistrates and supervisors of jail being brought thus to assess it frequently. A question arises then, that of the significance assigned by these professionals to dangerousness. Results of the interviews achieved close to these two groups as well as with citizens reveal homogeneous representations as for the dangerous individual but greatly heterogeneous representations with respect to the dangerous situations. While confirming the existence of several dangerousness (social, penal and prison), these results also show that all dangerousness assessment can be satisfactory on condition that it is done in an both clinical and social approach.