International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 57

International Journal on Criminology
the model, for example, of the observatoire national de la pauvreté de l’exclusion
sociale. 8
In the letter for the mission on the July 23, 2001, sent by the prime minister, Lionel
Jospin to the members of parliaments Christophe Caresche and Robert Pandraud, they
were asked to provide “work to define” a project for the clarification of “a new statistics
tool” which “could lead to the implementation of a body to supervise crime”.
The objectives to reach are described as the following: “It is a question of firstly
using a statistical tool which takes into account real developments in crime, the activity
of surveys and the follow up to data from legal institutions. […] It would also be
desirable to implement a tool that would allow, overall, to quantify the measure of the
developments in feelings of insecurity. Finally, the government considers that conditions
should be created for transparency in a subject as sensitive and close to the concerns of
our co-citizens. This presumes that the ONDRP distributes in a periodic and regular
manner, information on crime and responses which are brought by politicians involved in
public security. This also presumes that the ONDRP ensures its mission in close liaison
with the ministerial statistics services concerned.”.
The measure of “developing feelings of insecurity” carried out by studies within
households which within the public statistics system, is carried out by INSEE. Thus, it
appears that services producing data capable of providing information for the ONDRP are
mainly, the “statistics services” of the ministry of the interior and the ministry of justice
on the one hand, and INSEE on the other hand.
The expression of “statistics services of ministries concerned” when it is a question
of the ministry of the interior and justice under the name of the SSM Justice (the sub
directorate of statistics and studies) which is part of public statistics services and the
division of the head of the criminal police in charge of the état 4001 which doesn’t
belong to it.
The report of members of parliament Christophe Caresche and Robert Pandraud
submitted to the prime minister in January 2002 and relating to the “creation of an
organization supervising crime” does not however discuss this particular point (Caresche
and Pandraud, 2002).
It notes that “the statistical tradition is an ancient one for the ministry for justice: the
first publication of the administration of criminal justice dates back to 1825. Furthermore,
this ministry has since 1973 had a veritable statistics service led by a statistician,”, that is
to say a ministerial statistics service.
The report never makes reference to the exact notion of “ministerial statistics
services”, and does not question the absence of SSM on crime within the ministry of the
interior with a view to creating a supervisory body on crime. It envisages the eventual
consequences of the creation of a supervisory body on crime on the services of the
ministries in terms of means but not in terms of status: “ […] the dialogue with the
supervisory body should necessarily lead to the reinforcement of technical teams of
ministries by statisticians, […] for the ministry of the interior, a reinforced statistical
service should be created within the head of the criminal police”.
In conclusion to the report, the members of parliament Christophe Caresche and
Robert Pandraud wrote that“The creation of a supervisory body on crime is a necessity at
the current stage of the debate on figures […] In technical terms, there are many areas to
be worked on: improvement; modernisation of the computer processing; progressive
integration of overall statistics on crime; research of aggregates and relevant indicators;
studies on series of phenomena which have not been explored in detail. […] However, it
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8 The national body for supervision of poverty and social exclusion, http://www.onpes.gouv.fr/
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