Éclairages historiques, épidémiologiques et psychopathologiques concernant l’inceste : entre crime et pathologie ?

• Published in: Annales médico psychologiques 2014-08, Vol.172 (6), p.437-442
• Main Authors: Moroge, Sophie, Paul, Frédéric, Milan, Carole, Perez, Sylvie, Pilard, Michel
• Format: Article
• Language: fre
• Subjects: Code Pénal; Comorbidity; Comorbidités; Epidemiology; Incest; Inceste; Penal Code; Psychologie. Psychanalyse. Psychiatrie; Psychopathologia; Psychopathologie; Psychopathologie. Psychiatrie; Sciences biologiques et medicales; Sciences medicales; Épidémiologie
• ISSN: 0003-4487; 1769-6631
• DOI: 10.1016/j.amp.2012.12.006

En France, on estime actuellement que deux millions de personnes sont victimes d’inceste, les cas d’inceste constituant 20 % des procès d’Assises. Senon et Manzanera ont rapporté qu’en moyenne, seuls 1 % à 5 % des auteurs d’agression sexuelle présentent une pathologie psychiatrique au sens clinique du terme. En faisant une revue de la littérature, on ne peut que constater qu’il existe une variabilité importante dans l’estimation de la prévalence des différentes comorbidités psychiatriques chez les auteurs d’agressions sexuelles. Dans un contexte actuel de dramatisation médiatique et de répression sécuritaire des infractions sexuelles, nous avons choisi de nous interroger sur les limites entre crime et pathologie, chez une population de pères incestueux. There are many different specifications about incest and they do not refer to the same concept: each society gives it borders which are valid for a community in a specific time. Regulation about incest is constantly evolving as shown by the last act of February 8, 2010 that brings the term of “incest” in the penal French Code. Nowadays, about 2 millions French people are victims of incest. In France, incest cases constitute 20% of Assisi trials, they represent 75% of sexual assaults of minor cases and more than 57% of rape of minors. On the forensic accounting in 2007, sexual violence authors are the second largest contingent of subjects incarcerated, behind assault and battery authors. Senon and Manzanera estimate that only 1 to 5% of sexual offenders suffer from a mental disease. By a literature review, we found there is a significant variability in prevalence estimation about psychiatric comorbidities in sexual offenders’ population. In international classifications categories such as pedophilia are identified by the term of “sexual preference disorder” in ICD-10, or by the term of “paraphilia” in DSM-IV-TR. In both these classifications, the notion of incest is not clearly stated as a separate entity but finds itself inserted into the concept of pedophilia. Psychiatric classifications are not intended to study sexual offenses but they are useful, during forensic psychiatric assessment, to identify a mental illness causing transgressive sexual behavior or to identify a psychiatric comorbidity. However, statistically, very few sex offenders are recognized criminally irresponsible because of their mental illness, according to Article 122-1 paragraph 1 of the French Criminal Code. Psychiatric experts are “t