International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 56

Competition Between Those Involved in Public Debate on Crime Statistics
also the case for the general director of INSEE. Nobody denies this. However, it is
important that the appointment to such positions is coherent with the necessary neutrality
of those responsible for statistics (Charpin 2006, 18-19).
As we speak, the list of ministerial statistics services (SSM) was defined by the
decree from the minister for economy and finance following suggestions from the general
director of INSEE.
This process was modified during the revision of article 1 of the 1951 law on the
August 4, 2008, which stipulated in particular which public statistics authority should be
called upon for their opinion about draft decrees relating to the quality of ministerial
statistics services. From now on, the list of ministerial statistics services is therefore
established according to the authority of public statistics.
According to the former mode of appointment or the current system, the ministry of
the interior never wanted the service producing statistics on non road related crimes and
offences recorded by the police and gendarmes to become a “ministerial statistics
service.”
When Benoit Riandey stated, in May 2006 that “the ministry of the interior was not
applying the 1951 law, one might presume that he means that these statistics should be
entrusted to a ministerial statistics service.”
It is in fact what Jean Michel Charpin replies to him.
As we speak, the list of ministerial statistics services (SSM) has been defined by the
decreeof the ministry for economy and finances after suggestions from the general
director of INSEE. This process was modified during revision of article 1 of the 1952 law
from the August 4, 2008, which stipulates in particular that the authority of public
statistics “is called upon for opinions on orders relating to the recognition of the quality
of ministerial statistics services”. Since then, the list of ministerial statistics services is
therefore established according to the opinion of the public statistics authority.
According to the former mode of appointment or the current one, the ministry of the
interior never wished for a service producing statistics in cases of non road-related crimes
and incidents recorded by police and gendarmeries to become a “ministerial statistics
services”.
According to terminology suggested previously, the lack of willingness from the
ministry of the interior to create an SSM on crime statistics means in particular that the
service of the head of criminal police managing the état 4001 recording tool cannot claim
that it represents public statistics.
As a result, the distribution of statistics on incidents of non road related crimes and
offences by the ministry of the interior carried out in the past and is still carried out today
only in the framework of institutional communication. This situation is at the heart of
public debate on figures relating to crime.
Organization comparable to that of other ministries would have consisted, alongside
institutional communication, of distribution for which those producing data would be a
ministerial statistics service.
Reflection about the creation of a new organization for producing statistics on
crime in public debate
For a public statistician, the initial organizational response to willingness to improve
conditions of production and distribution of statistics on crime would have been the
creation of ministerial statistics services at the ministry of the interior. Once this objective
has been reached, one could have envisaged the creation of a structure which is the type
for a supervisory body associating INSEE and ministerial statistics services and justice on
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