Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2011

Monsters in a cage: convicts sentenced to death under media scrutiny in France in the 20th century

Nicolas Picard

Résumé

As a consequence of the decline in death penalty sentences in the 20th century in France, a people’s jury, in par with the public opinion, sentenced defendants to death only in the most monstrous cases. The exceptional nature of these criminals aroused media interest. Journalists reported not only detailed stories of their crimes, but they were also interested in studying their personalities. They interviewed their relatives and didn’t hesitate to impinge on their privacy. The need to understand their atrocious crimes justified this interest, but less honourable voyeurism could also explain these investigations. Monstrous criminals, considered as extremely dangerous and destined to elimination, waited for their execution or their pardon in jail. Being harmless then, they could be exposed to the readers’ eyes. A social sentence was added to the judicial one. The media expressed strong moral reprobation tinged with disgust against these criminals. Their discourses also showed some use of science, as they resorted to popularized notions of criminology and psychology to describe the monsters. But some press reports on death rows showed other aspects. Journalists emphasized the contrast between the horror of the crime and the harmless appearance of the criminal, with his/her very common pastimes and concerns. Reporters had come to see monsters, and they discovered ordinary people. 19th century criminology had developed the idea of a strict distinction between honest people and born-criminals. These reports on criminals sentenced to death suggested a more balanced and also more disturbing reality ‒ monsters looked like everyone, and maybe worse, everyone could potentially become a monster.

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Dates et versions

hal-05056674 , version 1 (05-05-2025)

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  • HAL Id : hal-05056674 , version 1

Citer

Nicolas Picard. Monsters in a cage: convicts sentenced to death under media scrutiny in France in the 20th century. Re-thinking the Monstrous: Violence and Criminality in Society, Ludwig-Maximilian – Universität, Jul 2011, Munich, Germany. ⟨hal-05056674⟩
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