Meaning Investigation and Hollow Filiation in Burglary Perpetrators

This research work offers to study the psychic process of stealing behaviours, more precisely among burglars. Insecurity and delinquency statistic reports state the number of burglaries has increased since 2016, yet only a few systematized researches about this subject have been made in psychoanalysis. We therefore conducted a study with thirty young adults aged between eighteen and twenty-nine years old and imprisoned for burglaries. We were particularly interested in these subjects’ processes of filiation and affiliation. In the article, we maintain that the recourse to acting is a search for meaning aiming to ensure subjective expression and fight against psychic breakdown. We will as well suggest that the incarceration stands for a containing experience aiming to overcome a defective protective shield. In order to study these psychic processes, we conducted semi-open interviews and asked the interviewees to freely build their family tree.