The book is designed to permit French-speaking students of criminology to familiarize themselves with the critical issues of criminology and criminal sociology. Topics covered include the control of deviance as a political process, the justification of penalties, the doctrine of dissuasion as the cornerstone of the Canadian penal system, the importance of the severity of the penalty and the likelihood of being punished, the nature of new social defense, criminal punishment as a means of protecting society, and the objectives of criminal law. Other topics discussed are present tendencies in criminological reflection, a sociopolitical approach to delinquency, limitations on criminology resulting from false philosophical premises, radicalism in sociology and American criminology, criminal statistics and research, rates of unreported crime in Montreal, statistics on the juvenile justice system in Quebec, and the discriminatory character of the juvenile justice system in its dealings with female delinquents. The final studies are devoted to business crime, institutional violence, and the relationship of criminology to nuclear policy. Notes, bibliographies, and tables are supplied for the separate articles.