International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 55

International Journal on Criminology
According to the rules listed, the use of purposes of general information of data
collected by police and gendarmeries on incidents recorded relating to public statistics.
Within the ministry of the interior, the division which manages them does not have the
status of SSM.
This situation was discussed on the May 31, 2006, during a conference dedicated to
the code of good practice in European statistics organized by the French statistics society,
during an exchange between Benoit Riandey from INED, and Jean-Michel Charpin, who
was then the general director of INSEE. His remarks were published in the fourth edition
of the “Journal de la société française de statistique 5 ” dated 2006 6 :
Benoît Riandey:
"You mentioned the ministerial statistics services. What is most striking is that there
is one ministry which does not abide by the 1951 law, given a lack of general statistics
services. That is the ministry of the interior. It is currently led by the former president of
CNIS 7 ”,
Mr. Sarkozy:
“This would be the opportunity to create a ministerial statistical service which does
not exist. Furthermore, three ministerial statistical services led by executives from INSEE
were students within the head of the central administration. Paradoxically, the status of
statistics has been removed from it, but its independence has potentially been weakened
given that the head of the service for ministerial statistics was appointed to the board of
ministers and no longer by the general director of INSEE.”
Jean-Michel Charpin:
“In response to the first point made, I share your feelings, but I find your remarks a
little harsh. Strategically, after having examined the situation of French public statistics, I
said to myself: there remains only one ministerial statistical service; all the other fields
are covered, and perhaps one day, we will need to group them all together, but in any
case, no extension, apart from on one area, which is that of statistics on crime and
domestic security”.
There are two fields which are not completely integrated into public statistics: for
one of these, this can be justified, but not for the other one. It is understandable with
health statistics, which are only very partially integrated into public statistics. [.]. Then
there are domestic security statistics: political and historic reasons have led to this kind
of information being left out of the field of public statistics, but this is not at all justified.
Therefore, in strategic terms, I'm doing everything I can to encourage the reintegration
of such statistics. I find your remarks a little harsh when you fail to discuss
developments which have been very encouraging indeed.
The ONDRP is not yet a ministerial statistics service but it has, however become
increasingly independent from the supervision of the ministry of the interior.
Nowadays, there is no more political interference in the publication of statistics and
that is very significant progress. Secondly, the fact that the heads of ministerial statistics
services are appointed to the Council of ministers is not something to be ignored: it is
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5 Journal of the French Statistics Society.
6 http://smf4.emath.fr/Publications/JSFdS/147_4/html/
7 The National Council For Statistical Information.
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