Catherine Blatier

Locus of Control, Causal Attributions, and Self-Esteem: A Comparison between Prisoners

In France, prisoners can be employed in building sites controlled by the penitentiary system but outside the prison. Prisoners involved in these special sentence-serving conditions were asked to fill out questionnaires testing their self-esteem, attitudes toward conformist and nonconformist behavior, attributions about their crime, and the locus of control. In this article, Weiner’s attributional theory of motivation and emotion is discussed. In addition to the three basic dimensions he proposed—locus of control, stability, and controllability—the contribution of self-esteem is examined. The answers given by these prisoners were compared with answers provided by prisoners in jail. The results may have implications for the treatment of criminal and delinquent behavior, because knowledge of prisoners’ attributions and beliefs about whether people are capable of changing their own behavior can help social workers, judges, therapists, and prison wardens achieve more successful psychological rehabilitation in prisoners.

An Analysis of Legal Intervention Concerning Minors in France

This essay discusses the French legal system and its treatment of young offenders. Within this system, special judges are assigned to deal with both at-risk children and with young offenders in the same venue. In this system, the actions of juvenile court judges are guided by a law which requires them to privilege an educational approach over a punitive one even when working with young offenders. Thus, social workers and French juvenile court judges work together in a way akin to restorative justice. This article analyzes what happens when the standard of the best interests of the child is applied not only in child protection cases, but also in matters of juvenile delinquency.