International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 35

International Journal on Criminology––Volume 1––Number 1––Fall 2013
Demographic Analysis of the Penal System: A Different Approach to
Sentencing
Pierre V. Tournier
A
t the end of the 1970s, with an education in the physical sciences, mathematics,
and demography, I became unexpectedly involved in the study of a rather
unusual population—the prison population. The French National Correctional
Administration was in the process of computerizing its systems and was seeking to
analyze the statistical data that would emerge from these new systems. It was somewhat
by chance that they recruited a demographer, rather than a statistician, for this task.
Since then and for nearly 35 years, I have worked in the criminological field and
sought, through quantitative analysis, to shed new light on prison trends and issues. My
research on prison demography has focused both on "populations under correctional
control" (whether detained or monitored in the community) and on the administrative and
judicial decision processes that impact these populations. This work has encouraged me
to reflect on the terms and concepts employed by those who have initiated criminal
justice and prison policies, that is, those who hold a direct or indirect stake in these
policies (i.e., judges, prison staff, unions and professional or associated organizations, the
media, etc.). These policies have targeted issues such as clearance rates, the growth or
reduction of the prison population, prison overcrowding, alternative sanctions, the
enforcement of criminal sanctions, early release decisions, as well as the rates of
recidivism or returns to prison and the prevalence of repeat offenders. These political
terms commonly used in the penal system needed to be revisited with the rigor required
of any serious quantitative approach. The goal was to better understand the changes in the
penal field and make comparisons within the European context, and to create explanatory
and evaluative tools regarding promising policies.
I thus sought to formalize the results of this long-term work, and to analyze everyday
vocabulary and its evolution over time. My aim was to define these concepts, as well as
to create new concepts, and to include them within the public discourse in France and in
other countries. The materials required for such a study was first gathered through my
work with French data (from the end of the 1960s until today), but the bulk of it was
acquired when I served as a specialist for the Council of Europe (from 1983 through
2005). These initiatives include the creation and development of the Council of Europe
Annual Penal Statistics (SPACE), which I initiated, and particularly the very complex
expansion of this system to community measures (SPACE 2) at the beginning of the
1990s; participation in the Sourcebook program to create a database with all European
crime statistics; preparation of the recommendations on prison population inflation and
the overcrowding of prisons, adopted on September 20, 1999, by the Committee of
Ministers; preparation of the recommendations on conditional release, adopted on
September 24, 2003; collaboration within the Criminological Scientific Council in a book
addressing "good practices" in criminal justice and correctional policy. 1
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1
Council of Europe. Crime policy in Europe. Good Practices and Promising Examples
(Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 2004).
34