International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 58

Competition Between Those Involved in Public Debate on Crime Statistics
is in terms of communication that the most innovation is needed. In fact, if the ministries
retain their data and can continue to carry out publications, it is up to the ONDRP to carry
out annual and periodical communication on crime figures.”.
The report recommends the creation of a public organism having initiatives in terms
of crime statistics which are extensive without envisaging the consequences in terms of
coordination of public statistics and the lack of SSM on crime within the ministry of the
interior.
The relations of the ONDRP with the courts of public statistics are tackled in a very
general way: “It would carry out its mission in collaboration with organisms in charge of
statistics at a national level, such as INSEE and in liaison with the CNIS (National
council for statistics information created at the national institute of statistics and
economic studies and in charge of coordinating statistical studies of public services […]”.
The role of producer of statistics which the national supervisory recommends in
“annual and periodic communication on crime figures” is not explicitly associated with
the notion of public statistics. However, in the absence of a ministerial statistics service
on crime at the ministry of the interior, this leaves in suspense organizational questions
that will need to be dealt with.
A new producer of official statistics which enters into competition with former
institutional communication
The OND announced in January 2003. A year after the report of members of
parliament Christophe Caresche and Robert Pandraud, created in November 2003 by the
installation of its board of advisers. The decree which makes this creation official
appeared in July 2004. 9
Since its creation, and despite the weakness of lack of means given to it (just 4
positions), the ONDRP immediately committed itself to understanding and above all
clarify the statistical tools which could exist in terms of crime and criminality. Above all,
it leaned towards the état 4001 tool, tool for recording crimes, and offences by the police
and national gendarmerie then carried out an assessment of other existing sources in
private or public organisms before working with INSEE in designing a victimization
study which had the vocation of being renewed each year.
In the past, during 2002, institutional communication from the ministry of the
interior regarding incidents recorded by police and gendarmeries which became
monthly. 10
This new rhythm for publishing data fed public debate on figures relation to crime.
It is therefore in this context that a “supervisory body on statistics which rises above
suspicions” was created at the end of 2003 (AFP 2003).
While “in terms of security (protection of people and property) the collection of
information regarding crime and the interpretation of quantitative data has always been
an extremely sensitive historic issue, and in France perhaps more so than elsewhere.”
(Ocqueteau 2008), political authorities decided to implement a structure which would
have to use and interpret data for which the ministry of the interior could no longer have
complete control over its use.
The first OND publications were distributed at the end of 2004 in the form of
different articles mainly to be used mainly for methodology 11 aiming in particular, as the
main fundamentals of official UN statistics remind us, aiming to “facilitate correct
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9 http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000442860
10 http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_votre_service/statistiques/criminalite/2002
11 http://www.inhesj.fr/?q=content/r%C3%A9sultats-et-m%C3%A9thodes
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