Notes · FrenchUK · A-Levels

How criminals are treated

Comment on traite les criminels closes AQA's current-issues theme, at A-Level only. It covers attitudes to crime, whether prison succeeds or fails, and alternative sanctions. The notes set out the French criminal-justice system accurately - the three-tier classification contravention, délit, crime, the courts that match them, the actors from le procureur to le juge d'application des peines - together with the alternatives to imprisonment (le sursis, le travail d'intérêt général, le bracelet électronique, la justice restaurative) and the abolition of the death penalty in 1981, which anchors the whole French debate.

5 sections~24 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 2 · Advanced 3

T·0666 / 15

Exam profile

AO1 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to spoken French on crime and justiceAO2 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to written French on penal policyAO3 · Manipulate the language accurately, using a range of lexis and structureAO4 · Show knowledge of, and respond critically to, criminal justice in French-speaking society

Operators:traduirerésumerdéfinirargumenterpeserconclure

basic level

This sub-theme belongs to the current-issues theme and is not part of AS French (7651).

higher level

The full A-Level expects the purposes of punishment to be distinguished and weighed - punir, dissuader, protéger, réinsérer - and the French institutional vocabulary to be used accurately rather than translated from English assumptions.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

How criminals are treated

Attitudes to crime: quelles attitudes envers la criminalité ?#

StandardAQA 7652 3.1.2 - Comment on traite les criminels : quelles attitudes envers la criminalité ?DfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

Le parcours pénal

Fig. 1The chain from l'infraction to la réinsertion or la récidive. The branch after la peine is where the whole sub-theme is decided: prison, or one of the alternatives.

French law classifies offences into three tiers, and everything else follows from them. Une contravention is a minor offence, punishable by a fine and tried before le tribunal de police. Un délit is an intermediate offence - theft, fraud, assault, drug offences - punishable by up to ten years and tried before le tribunal correctionnel. Un crime is the most serious category - murder, rape, armed robbery - tried before la cour d'assises, historically with a jury of citizens alongside professional judges. The English word crime therefore does not translate as un crime except for the gravest offences; general criminality is la criminalité or la délinquance, and an offence in general is une infraction.

The actors are equally specific. Le procureur de la République heads le parquet, also called le ministère public, and decides whether to prosecute in the name of society. Le juge d'instruction investigates the most serious cases independently - a role with no British equivalent and therefore worth explaining rather than translating. Le juge d'application des peines supervises how a sentence is actually served. L'avocat de la défense defends; la partie civile is the victim joined to the proceedings to claim damages, another distinctively French mechanism. Before trial there is la garde à vue (police custody, strictly time-limited) and possibly la détention provisoire (remand), and throughout there is la présomption d'innocence.

Attitudes to crime revolve around a gap that French commentary names precisely: the difference between la criminalité réelle and le sentiment d'insécurité - the actual level of offending and how unsafe people feel. The two do not move together, and the causes of the gap are examinable: media treatment (le traitement médiatique, les faits divers - the sensational news-in-brief items French papers run), political use of the issue, and personal experience. The French phrase for the media's role is la surmédiatisation. Being able to say le sentiment d'insécurité ne coïncide pas nécessairement avec la criminalité réelle is a strong, defensible opening for any answer on this strand.

Public attitudes divide along a line French discussion labels clearly: les partisans de la fermeté, who want des peines plus lourdes, la tolérance zéro and stricter application of sentences; and les partisans de la prévention, who argue that punishment alone does not reduce offending and that l'éducation, l'insertion professionnelle, la prévention de la délinquance and le travail social do more. The debate has a decisive French landmark: the death penalty was abolished by the law of 9 October 1981, championed by the justice minister Robert Badinter, at a time when opinion polls did not support abolition. That fact is doubly useful - it is a real, checkable anchor, and it illustrates that penal policy is not simply the arithmetic of public opinion.

Worked example

Translation into English: a passage on the fear of crime

Translate into English: « Le sentiment d'insécurité a augmenté alors même que certains chiffres de la délinquance reculaient. C'est que les faits divers occupent une place croissante dans les journaux télévisés : à force d'entendre parler d'agressions, on finit par croire qu'on en risque une à chaque coin de rue. »

Handle alors même que
alors même que means even though, and takes the indicative. Here the imperfect reculaient describes a trend in progress: even though some crime figures were falling. Do not weaken it to while.
Recognise C'est que
C'est que at the head of a sentence is an explanatory formula: The reason is that... or This is because... It is not It is that. Missing it loses the logical link the whole passage turns on.
Translate les faits divers
There is no neat English equivalent. Les faits divers are the short human-interest and crime items in the news. Acceptable renderings: crime and human-interest stories, or news-in-brief crime items. Never leave it untranslated and never render it as various facts.
Handle à force de
à force d'entendre parler de = from hearing so much about, or by dint of constantly hearing about. It expresses accumulation leading to a result, and the result follows in on finit par croire - one ends up believing.
Handle the pronoun en
on en risque une refers back to une agression: one is at risk of one. Natural English: that you risk being attacked on every street corner. Rendering the pronoun as it or of them would be clumsy; translate the sense.

Result: The feeling of insecurity has increased even though some crime figures were falling. The reason is that crime and human-interest stories take up a growing amount of space on television news: from hearing so much about attacks, people end up believing they risk being attacked on every street corner.

Typical mistakes

Translating a crime as un crime in every context; petty offences are des délits or des infractions.
Assuming a French prosecutor and a British one work identically; le procureur, le juge d'instruction and la partie civile have no exact English equivalents.

Active revision

Expliquez en français, en 100 mots, la différence entre contravention, délit et crime, en indiquant le tribunal compétent pour chacun.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - subject content (AQA) · GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

Does prison work? La prison - échec ou succès ?#

AdvancedAQA 7652 3.1.2 - Comment on traite les criminels : la prison - échec ou succès ?DfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

Answer this question by first splitting it, because prison is asked to do four different jobs and it succeeds at some more than others. Punir: to punish, the retributive function - la peine as a deserved response to the offence. Dissuader: to deter, both the individual offender and others, la dissuasion. Protéger la société: to incapacitate, keeping a dangerous person away from the public - la mise à l'écart. Réinsérer: to prepare a return to ordinary life, la réinsertion. French penal law explicitly assigns both punishment and reintegration to the sentence, which is why the question échec ou succès has no single answer: la prison remplit sa fonction punitive, mais échoue souvent dans sa fonction réinsertive.

The French prison estate has a vocabulary you should use precisely. Une maison d'arrêt holds people on remand and those serving short sentences, and is where overcrowding is concentrated. Un centre de détention holds sentenced prisoners with a reintegration orientation. Une maison centrale holds long sentences and the most dangerous prisoners. Un établissement pénitentiaire is the neutral umbrella term; la pénitentiaire or l'administration pénitentiaire is the prison service; un surveillant pénitentiaire is a prison officer, not un gardien. Une cellule is a cell, and la promenade is exercise time.

The case against prison, as made in France, has four planks and each has its own noun. La surpopulation carcérale - overcrowding, chronic in maisons d'arrêt, with cells holding more people than they were designed for; France has been condemned more than once by the European Court of Human Rights over conditions of detention. La récidive - reoffending after release. La désocialisation - the loss of job, housing and family ties that imprisonment causes. And l'effet criminogène, the argument that prison functions as une école du crime, where minor offenders acquire contacts and methods. Deploying these four nouns in order is a ready-made paragraph.

The case for prison must be made fairly if the answer is to be credited as critical. Certain offences call for a response proportionate to the harm done, and victims have a legitimate expectation that serious crime is met with more than a supervision order: la peine a aussi une fonction symbolique, elle dit publiquement la gravité de l'acte. Some offenders genuinely need to be kept away from the public. And prison can be the setting for real work on reintegration where resources exist - formation professionnelle, accès à l'enseignement, suivi par le SPIP, le service pénitentiaire d'insertion et de probation, and preparation for release through l'aménagement de peine. The mature conclusion: la prison n'est ni un succès ni un échec en soi ; tout dépend de ce qu'on en attend et des moyens qu'on y consacre.

Worked example

Building a four-function answer under time pressure

The card asks: « La prison remplit-elle son rôle ? » You have five minutes to prepare. Produce a plan and the opening and closing sentences.

Write four words, not a script
On your notes: PUNIR / DISSUADER / PROTÉGER / RÉINSÉRER. Add one keyword under each: proportionnalité / récidive / dangerosité / désocialisation. That is the whole plan, and it is retrievable at speed.
Open by refusing the yes-or-no framing
Tout dépend de la fonction qu'on assigne à la peine : punir, dissuader, protéger ou réinsérer. La prison ne réussit pas également dans ces quatre rôles. This immediately signals analysis rather than opinion.
Deliver two functions with evidence
Elle protège efficacement la société des individus les plus dangereux, et elle exprime symboliquement la gravité de l'acte. En revanche, la dissuasion reste incertaine : le taux de récidive après une courte peine demeure élevé. Note the safe formulation - demeure élevé rather than an invented percentage.
Deliver the failure with mechanism
Surtout, elle échoue souvent à réinsérer, car elle désocialise : on perd son emploi, son logement, parfois sa famille, et l'on sort avec un casier judiciaire qui ferme des portes. le casier judiciaire is the criminal record - a precise term worth having.
Close by choosing
En définitive, je dirais que la prison est nécessaire mais surutilisée : elle devrait être réservée aux faits les plus graves, les autres relevant d'alternatives mieux adaptées. The gerund-like les autres relevant de is an elegant compression, and choosing a position satisfies AO4.

Result: Opening: Tout dépend de la fonction qu'on assigne à la peine : punir, dissuader, protéger ou réinsérer ; la prison ne réussit pas également dans ces quatre rôles. Closing: En définitive, je dirais que la prison est nécessaire mais surutilisée : elle devrait être réservée aux faits les plus graves, les autres relevant d'alternatives mieux adaptées.

Typical mistakes

Answering la prison est un échec without saying at what - the question is meaningless until the purpose is specified.
Calling a prison officer un gardien; the French term is un surveillant pénitentiaire.

Active revision

Rédigez 150 mots en français répondant à « La prison est-elle un échec ? », en traitant séparément les quatre fonctions de la peine et en concluant.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - subject content (AQA)

Alternatives to prison: d'autres sanctions#

AdvancedAQA 7652 3.1.2 - Comment on traite les criminels : d'autres sanctionsDfE GCE modern foreign languages subject content

French law offers a real menu of non-custodial sanctions, and naming them precisely is the substance of this strand. Le sursis suspends a prison sentence, which is served only if the person offends again; le sursis probatoire attaches supervision and obligations to it. Le travail d'intérêt général, usually abbreviated to TIG, requires unpaid work for a public body or an association, and was introduced in the 1980s. Le placement sous surveillance électronique, known as le bracelet électronique, allows a sentence to be served at home under electronic monitoring. Une amende is a fine; un stage de citoyenneté or un stage de sensibilisation is an obligatory awareness course. And le juge d'application des peines can grant l'aménagement de peine or la libération conditionnelle.

Beyond alternatives to prison, France has adopted la justice restaurative, introduced into French law in 2014. It brings victim and offender into a mediated encounter, voluntarily and outside the sentencing process, with the aim of repairing harm and restoring the victim's agency. The vocabulary is worth having: la médiation pénale, la rencontre détenus-victimes, la réparation du préjudice, reconnaître les faits. The argument for it is that it addresses what the ordinary criminal process leaves untouched - la victime, souvent, ne reçoit ni explication ni excuse - and the argument against is that it can seem to soften the response to serious harm.

The case for alternatives is best made in causal, not moral, terms. They avoid la désocialisation, since the person keeps job, housing and family ties. They cost the state far less than a prison place. They keep short-sentence offenders out of the criminogenic environment of a maison d'arrêt. And they allow the sanction to be fitted to the offence and the offender - l'individualisation de la peine, a principle French sentencing law explicitly recognises. The counter-arguments are equally real: alternatives can be perceived as impunity, they require supervision capacity that is often lacking, and they are unsuitable for the most serious offences.

For the highest AO4 band, connect sanction to prevention. French policy vocabulary distinguishes la prévention primaire (education, youth work, urban policy, before any offence), la prévention secondaire (targeted at those at risk) and la prévention tertiaire (preventing reoffending after a sanction). Saying, in French, that la meilleure politique pénale commence hors du tribunal is not a platitude if you attach it to mechanism: le décrochage scolaire, l'absence de perspectives professionnelles et la relégation de certains quartiers alimentent la délinquance bien avant que la justice n'intervienne. Note the expletive ne after avant que - a refined touch that costs nothing.

Worked example

Translation into French: the argument for alternatives

Translate into French: Short prison sentences do more harm than good. Someone who spends three months in prison loses his job and often his home, so that he comes out in a worse position than he went in. It would be better to develop community service, provided that offenders are properly supervised.

Handle do more harm than good
faire plus de mal que de bien is the exact French idiom. Note the two de before mal and bien; omitting the second is a frequent error.
Handle Someone who spends
Celui qui passe trois mois en prison - celui qui is the standard French for someone who in a general statement, and it is more idiomatic than quelqu'un qui here. Note en prison without an article.
Choose the result connector
so that expressing result, not purpose, takes the indicative: si bien qu'il sort dans une situation pire qu'à son entrée. If you wrote pour qu'il sorte you would have changed the meaning to purpose - and made the sentence absurd.
Handle It would be better to
Il vaudrait mieux + infinitive: Il vaudrait mieux développer le travail d'intérêt général. valoir mieux is impersonal and the conditional vaudrait carries the hedge. Do not write il serait mieux de, which is weaker French.
Handle provided that
à condition que + subjonctif: à condition que les condamnés soient correctement encadrés. Note the passive subjunctive soient encadrés - it combines two A-level structures in four words, which is exactly what the AO3 mark scheme rewards.

Result: Les courtes peines de prison font plus de mal que de bien. Celui qui passe trois mois en détention perd son emploi et souvent son logement, si bien qu'il sort dans une situation pire qu'à son entrée. Il vaudrait mieux développer le travail d'intérêt général, à condition que les condamnés soient correctement encadrés.

Typical mistakes

Describing le sursis as a suspended sentence and stopping; the key point is that the prison term is served only if the person reoffends.
Presenting la justice restaurative as a replacement for the criminal process - in France it operates alongside it and is voluntary.

Active revision

Présentez en français trois peines alternatives, en expliquant pour chacune à quel type d'infraction elle convient et pourquoi.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - subject content (AQA)

Le lexique et les tournures: the language of justice#

StandardAQA 7652 3.1.2 - Comment on traite les criminelsAQA 7652 3.3 Grammar

The field in blocks. Les infractions: une contravention, un délit, un crime, un vol, un cambriolage, une agression, une escroquerie, un trafic de stupéfiants, la délinquance, la criminalité, la récidive. Les acteurs: un(e) accusé(e), un(e) prévenu(e), un(e) condamné(e), un(e) détenu(e), une victime, la partie civile, un témoin, un avocat, un procureur, un juge, un jury, un surveillant pénitentiaire. La procédure: une enquête, une garde à vue, une mise en examen, la détention provisoire, un procès, une audience, un verdict, une condamnation, un acquittement, un appel, un pourvoi en cassation. Les peines: une amende, une peine de prison ferme, le sursis, le travail d'intérêt général, le bracelet électronique, la libération conditionnelle, le casier judiciaire.

The verbs carry precise legal meanings and must not be swapped. Commettre une infraction (to commit). Arrêter and interpeller (to arrest). Placer en garde à vue. Poursuivre (to prosecute). Juger (to try). Condamner quelqu'un à (to sentence someone to) - note à, and note that condamner also means to condemn in the moral sense. Acquitter (to acquit) and relaxer (to discharge in a tribunal correctionnel - a distinct term). Purger sa peine (to serve one's sentence). Récidiver (to reoffend). Se réinsérer (to reintegrate). Note the difference between être en prison and faire de la prison, and that emprisonner is transitive while incarcérer is more formal.

Grammatically, this sub-theme is where the passive and reported speech naturally live. The passive: il a été condamné à trois ans de prison, dont un avec sursis - note the elegant dont construction for the suspended portion. Reported speech: le juge a déclaré que l'accusé n'avait pas coopéré, with the pluperfect required by the sequence of tenses after a past reporting verb. AQA lists indirect speech explicitly in its grammar annex, and crime reporting is where it appears most naturally in authentic material. Practise the shifts: dit-il que... becomes a-t-il dit qu'il... with the tense moving back one step.

Finally, the argumentative frames for a debate about punishment. To weigh purposes: la peine vise avant tout à..., elle a pour objectif de..., son but premier est de... To object: on objectera que, il n'en demeure pas moins que, encore faut-il que + subjonctif. To propose: il conviendrait de, mieux vaudrait + infinitif, on aurait intérêt à + infinitif. To conclude: tout bien pesé, en dernière analyse, il ressort de ce qui précède que. A model sentence combining several: Encore faut-il que les alternatives soient réellement contrôlées, faute de quoi elles seront perçues comme une impunité.

Worked example

Reported speech in a court report

Convert to indirect speech introduced by a past reporting verb: (1) Le procureur : « L'accusé a menti. » (2) L'avocat : « Mon client regrette son geste. » (3) Le juge : « Vous serez jugé en octobre. » (4) Le témoin : « Je ne l'ai pas vu. »

Fix the sequence rule
After a past reporting verb, the present moves to the imperfect, the passé composé to the pluperfect, and the future to the conditional. Time and place markers shift too: hier becomes la veille, demain becomes le lendemain, ici becomes là.
Convert (1) and (4) - passé composé to pluperfect
Le procureur a affirmé que l'accusé avait menti. Le témoin a déclaré qu'il ne l'avait pas vu. Note that the pronoun l' survives the shift and that pas stays with the auxiliary.
Convert (2) - present to imperfect
L'avocat a expliqué que son client regrettait son geste. Note also the possessive shift from mon client to son client - a point candidates routinely forget.
Convert (3) - future to conditional, and vous to il
Le juge a annoncé qu'il serait jugé en octobre. Both shifts are required: the tense and the person. Leaving vous would make the sentence incoherent.
Choose the reporting verb deliberately
French has a rich set: affirmer, déclarer, soutenir, prétendre (to claim, with a hint of doubt), reconnaître (to admit), nier (to deny). Choosing prétendre rather than dire signals scepticism, which is a real analytical choice in a court report.

Result: (1) Le procureur a affirmé que l'accusé avait menti. (2) L'avocat a expliqué que son client regrettait son geste. (3) Le juge a annoncé qu'il serait jugé en octobre. (4) Le témoin a déclaré qu'il ne l'avait pas vu.

Typical mistakes

Writing il a été condamné pour trois ans - the preposition is à for the length of the sentence and pour for the offence.
Confusing une peine (a sentence or punishment) with la peine meaning trouble or sorrow, and with la peine de mort - context decides, and mistranslation is costly.

Active revision

Transformez cinq phrases au discours direct tirées d'un compte rendu de procès en discours indirect au passé, en respectant la concordance des temps.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - grammar (AQA)

En épreuve: argument, evidence and restraint#

AdvancedAQA 7652 4.4 Paper 1 - Listening, reading and writingAQA 7652 4.6 Paper 3 - Speaking, part one

Reading texts on this sub-theme are frequently institutional or judicial in register, which means dense nominal phrases and formulaic connectors: en application de, au titre de, aux termes de, il ressort de l'enquête que, la juridiction compétente. You do not need to produce this register, but you must decode it. The single most useful habit is to find the verb of the main clause first; French legal prose front-loads long noun phrases, and readers who work left to right get lost. Once the main verb is located, the subject and object usually fall into place.

Listening material may include a debate between two speakers with opposing views - AQA guarantees at least one passage with more than one speaker. On this sub-theme, that usually means a fermeté speaker against a prévention speaker. Questions will ask you to attribute positions, so track the speakers by their argumentative markers rather than by voice alone: moi je dis que, c'est bien beau mais, il ne faut pas oublier que, vous parlez de. Note that French debate interrupts more readily than British debate; an interruption is not confusion, and the content is still examinable.

In translation, the vocabulary set is predictable: to be sentenced to = être condamné à; a suspended sentence = une peine avec sursis; community service = un travail d'intérêt général; to reoffend = récidiver; a criminal record = un casier judiciaire; overcrowding = la surpopulation; to serve a sentence = purger une peine; the victim = la victime (always feminine, even for a man - une victime, elle). That last point is a real accuracy trap: la victime a déclaré qu'elle... regardless of the person's sex.

For the card, restraint is the strategy. This sub-theme rewards precision and penalises both bloodthirsty and naive positions. Anchor everything in the French system - le tribunal correctionnel, le sursis, le TIG, l'abolition de 1981, la surpopulation carcérale - and use attribution for hard-line views: les partisans de la fermeté soutiennent que..., argument auquel on peut opposer que... Two ready questions for the examiner: Estimez-vous que les peines alternatives sont suffisamment contrôlées en France ? and Pensez-vous que l'opinion publique devrait influencer la politique pénale ?

Worked example

Decoding a dense institutional sentence

Decode and answer: « L'aménagement de la peine, prononcé par le juge d'application des peines à l'issue d'une évaluation menée par le service pénitentiaire d'insertion et de probation, vise à préparer la sortie du condamné. » Question: Qui décide de l'aménagement de peine et dans quel but ?

Find the main verb
Everything between the commas is a long participial insertion. Strip it out and the skeleton appears: L'aménagement de la peine ... vise à préparer la sortie du condamné. The main verb is vise.
Attribute the participle
prononcé par le juge d'application des peines is a past participle agreeing with l'aménagement (masculine singular). So the decision-maker is le juge d'application des peines - the answer to the first half of the question.
Read the second insertion
à l'issue d'une évaluation menée par le SPIP means following an assessment carried out by the probation service. à l'issue de = at the end of, following. This is context, not the answer.
State the purpose
viser à + infinitive means to aim to. The purpose is préparer la sortie du condamné - to prepare the prisoner's release.
Answer only what is asked
Two elements are requested: who and why. Give exactly those, in French, without transcribing the sentence.

Result: C'est le juge d'application des peines qui la décide, après une évaluation réalisée par le service pénitentiaire d'insertion et de probation, dans le but de préparer la sortie du condamné.

Typical mistakes

Translating community service as le service communautaire; the French term is le travail d'intérêt général.
Taking a purely punitive or purely permissive line on the card; the top AO4 band requires evaluation, which means weighing both.

Active revision

Trouvez un article francophone sur un procès. Repérez le verbe principal de chaque phrase longue, puis résumez l'affaire en 95 mots sans reprendre le vocabulaire juridique du texte.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA A-level French (7652) specification - scheme of assessment (AQA)

References & sources

Sources

AQA

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

How criminals are treated

5 sections~24 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 2 · Advanced 3

How criminals are treated

Key points

Translation into English: a passage on the fear of crime

Key points

Building a four-function answer under time pressure

Key points

Translation into French: the argument for alternatives

Key points

Reported speech in a court report

Key points

Decoding a dense institutional sentence

Sources

How criminals are treated

Key points

Translation into English: a passage on the fear of crime

Key points

Building a four-function answer under time pressure

Key points

Translation into French: the argument for alternatives

Key points

Reported speech in a court report

Key points

Decoding a dense institutional sentence

Sources