La criminalité sexuelle commise par des femmes : critique méthodologique et épistémologique de quelques travaux nord-américains et français

Abstract: This paper reviews the present work in the field of criminology, and precisely about female sexual offenders. First, in this study, we would like to submit a critical reading of some Canadians and Americans articles. In a second time, we’ll try to do the same work with French studies. These two points of view, the first one with typologies and the second one with psychopathology are really different. The North American authors began earlier than French to work on the women who sexually abuse subject. So, in the middle of 1980s, they were able to find some descriptions of modus operandi and also of these women''s personalities. Appeared later in France, this subject is actually still only on a discovery state with some propositions about the psychopathology. From a methodological and a theoretical position, we will ask two questions. First, about the sexual abusers categorisation: how the psychologist or the psychiatrist can they work with a category coming from the law? Secondly, about the sexes difference: can the psychologist and the psychiatrist work in criminology with taking men like the standard point of view? In other words, it seems that the questions we have to ask are both, “can the psychologist and the psychiatrist have a therapeutic approach only on the basis of the comportment”? and “is there a specificity in female criminality”? [Copyright &y& Elsevier]