Violence is defined as a type of personal relationship characterized by the aggressor's brutality and the victim's resistance and eventual submission to the attacker. Despite increasing concern of the mass media and the French population about violence, the number of violent offenses has declined over the past 2 years and constitutes now less than 10 percent of all investigations and arrests. Moreover, violence is predominant in a rather small section of the French population, i.e., males between the ages of 18 and 25. Many of them are foreigners; adherence to a particular group often encourages the acting out of aggressions. Through imprisonment--society's response to violent crime--the former aggressor becomes the victim restricted in his freedom of movement, his privacy, the use of his time, and his personal contacts. The violence of prisonization creates its own counterviolence which, finding no other outlet, is frequently expressed in form of self-aggression and psychosomatic illnesses. Within this framework, the psychiatrist is in danger of assuming an alibi function for a repressive system and must therefore be constantly prepared to defend his professional code of ethics against institutional pressures. Foremost, the client himself must have complete freedom to accept or reject any treatment or medication the psychiatrist may suggest. In addition, the psychiatrist can help break the circle of violence by stimulating discussion between inmates and the institution and by pointing out to the institution its part in prisoner violence. --in French.