Article ID: CBB000931374

“Faire du chiffre” pour exister: Les gendarmes et les policiers au principe des statistiques judiciaires (1875--1914) (2007)

unapi

López, Laurent (Author)


Histoire & Mesure
Volume: 22, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 75-101


Publication Date: 2007
Edition Details: Part of a special issue: “Déviance, justice et statistiques”
Language: French

Gendarmes and policemen were already, in the 19th century, the main suppliers of the penal justice. As such, they played a fundamental role in the construction of the judicial statistics, compiled annually in the Compte général de l'administration de la justice criminelle. Under the 3rd Republic, they were violently criticized, on the basis of criminal statistics in increase, supposed to demonstrate their incompetence. Both gendarmes and policemen thus tried to regain institutional legitimacy and social utility by presenting statistics more to their advantage. Improved productivity in law enforcement became a major element in the debate on security, as well as a necessary part of the job of the law enforcement forces. Judicial statistics also fuelled the competition between policemen and gendarmes. Finally, the Belle Époque saw a shift from a purely quantitative logic in the fight against the forces of crime to a more qualitative approach: from then on, what mattered was not only any more to make of the figure, but overall to make of the good figure.

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Article Vesentini, Frédéric (2007) Introduction. Histoire & Mesure (pp. 3-11). unapi

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Authors & Contributors
Rowse, Tim
Saumitra Basu
Woolf, Stuart J.
Wong, Wing H.
Vesentini, Frédéric
Tanner, Martin A.
Concepts
Applied statistics
Statistics
Mathematics
Science and law
Science and government
Science and economics
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
18th century
20th century, late
Places
France
New Zealand
India
Great Britain
Prussia (Germany)
United States
Institutions
France. Statistique générale
École Polytechnique, Paris
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