International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 65

International Journal on Criminology
Concepts introduced by the current article could be used in other ways which will
perhaps be explored later. In coherence with the previous example, we once again tackle
the question of competition encountered by producers of statistics a new arrival claiming
that it is representative of public statistics such as the ONDRP in public debate on crime
but this time relating to victimization studies.
Victimization studies: nature of competition between those producing official
statistics and the team of researchers of the CNRS 23 , a pioneer in this field in
France
Jan Van Dijk, a Dutch criminoligist, reminds us that “from a historical point of view,
national victimization studies were launched in the United States in 1972 in order to
inform people more about political debates taking place regarding criminality and
violence”. However, he adds that “in Europe, the first victimization studies were carried
out not by statisticians but by criminologists working either in research institutes financed
by the government, as is the case in Holland, the United Kindgom, in Poland or in France
[…]” (Van Dijk 2008).
For France, the sociologists Philippe Robert and Renée Zauberman from the centre
of sociological research on law and institutions dealing with criminal issues (the
CESDIP) have been at the heart of the first national victimization study.
The CESDIP presents itself as the following on its website 24 : “The CESDIP is a
mixed research unit from the CNRS (UMR 25 8183), created by the n° 83-926 decree from
the 20 th October 1983. The CESDIP has a long history dating back 40 years, since it
comes from the service for studies into crime related issues and criminology studies of
the ministry for justice (the SEPC established in 1969. Since 2006, the CESDIP is a
UMR with three supervisory bodies: the CNRS, the ministry for justice and the
University of Versailles-Saint Quentin.”
Again on the CESDIP site, on the November 14, 2008, an announcement 26 specifies
regarding victimization studies that “Initiated at the CESDIP in the middle of the 1980s
on a national scale, these studies were first of all perfected and made routine at a local
level (regional plan in partnership with the AURIF 27 and a municipal plan in partnership
with the French Forum for Urban security). After that, the CESDIP participated in the
organisation of a national annual study by INSEE and now looks after the operations and
systematic serialisation of it. The team of researchers which carry out these operations is
composed of Emmanuel Didier, Philippe Robert, Renée Zauberman, Sophie Névanen et
Lisa Miceli”.
The CESDIP is therefore an organization for producing statistics on crime
participating in public debate via publications and in particular those on victimization
studies. It does not distribute what we call here “official statistics” as its works do not
involve any public administration and in particular, not the ministry of justice, one of its
three supervisory bodies.
In 2003, during the creation of the OND one of its main missions, the development
of victimization studies, created a new situation for the CESDIP team having invested in
this field for several decades.
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23 National Centre for Scientific Research.
24 http://www.cesdip.fr/spip.php?rubrique1
25 Mixed research unit.
26 http://www.cesdip.fr/spip.php?article2
27 AURIF is the Association for users of computing networks in the Île de France region.
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