International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 59

International Journal on Criminology
interpretation of data” by providing “according to scientific rules, information on sources,
methods and procedures” used by “organization responsible for statistics” (The UN
1992).
As a result of the lack of revival and perhaps complexity in relation to a field which
was previously tackled in a very simplistic way, these articles did not immediately benefit
from access to public debate.
In January 2005, during a press conference, the ministry of the interior proceeded to
its institutional communication on incidents recorded in 2004. It was then the only
producer of official statistics on crime to intervene in public debate.
A few days later, in February 2005, the daily newspaper Liberation chose to “reveal”
the results of one of the articles distributed a few weeks earlier by the OND relating to
people accused by the police or gendarmeries of violence or threats. 12 This article, which
escaped the attention of journalists, was therefore picked up on by a daily newspaper
which dedicated its front page and a dossier to it.
This initial access to public debate from the OND as a producer of official data was
made possible by an internal initiative of promotion of publications which went unnoticed
at the end of December 2004 and also made possible by the interest of a daily
newspaper in statistics relating to those under 18 accused of violence or threats.
We can also observe, in the way that the newspaper dealt with this article, tension
between the emphatic title “Violence growing significantly amongst those aged under
18” and “Violence growing significantly amongst those aged under 18” and the
editorial 13 which suggests taking “precautions” when interpreting the figures on this.
Another tension also exists in the original publication by the OND. There, it can be
read that “The ONDRP considers that only one approach with the help of multiple
statistics sources allows for the analysis of developments in crime and offences. This
would be an initial approach and to carry this out, it relies on one single source; the état
4001 tool”.
In both cases, clear objectives are simultaneously pursued, which can lead to a
certain contradiction. According to Liberation, an attempt is being made to tone down a
striking title on violence of those under 18 which is not necessarily part of the ideological
tradition of a daily newspaper by an editorial which a lot less categorical. The OND is for
its part, confronted with a dilemma. waiting to not be dependent on a single statistical
source according to the methodology it recommends or publishes based on existing data
by keeping the “multi source” approach for later.
Institutional communication of statistics extracted from the état 4001 every month 14
influenced the choice of the ONDRP. Before having published its first study, the OND
was thus confronted with the existence of monthly distribution competing within official
statistics.
Before becoming “a producer of statistics”, the ONDRP carried out methodological
work which is concluded by the definition of a general framework of analysis, for the
particular case of the état 4001, and with a new working framework.
As Alain Desrosières, reminds us “statistics methodology” implies “a division of
work between, on the one hand, ‘experts’ in the statistical tool as such, and on the other
hand, the ‘users’ of it de, such as economists, sociologists, historians or psychologists”
(Desrosières 2001).
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12 http://www.liberation.fr/evenement/0101518411-violence-des-mineurs-une-croissancemajeure
13 http://www.liberation.fr/evenement/0101518407-precaution
14 http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_votre_service/statistiques/criminalite
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