Laurent Mucchielli

• Professor
• Directeur de recherche at French National Centre for Scientific Research

This article attempts to summarize the state of scientific knowledge on the criminality of the pharmaceutical industry, based on American and French sources. After recalling the most serious cases since the 1950s, and the millions of deaths and serious injuries caused to the public, it details the mechanisms of fraud and corruption commonly practic...

Drawing inspiration from researches on environmental crime and corporate crime, this chapter examines the case of air pollution caused by road transport and industry in France. The purpose of the author is first to document the nature and extent of these health threats to populations and second to highlight the existence of delinquent practices (de...

Context: In 2020, the French population lived under the threat of the Covid-19 epidemic, which would allegedly cause an exceptional excess mortality rate. Mortality data by cause of death for the year 2020 are now available. These data allow us to quantify and qualify the impact of the epidemic. This analysis presents the evolution of the main mort...

Voilà maintenant plus de deux ans que dure la crise sanitaire liée au Covid-19 en France, période durant laquelle des contraintes inédites ont été mises en place pour y faire face : confinement, restriction des déplacements, obligation de port d’un masque, obligation vaccinale pour certains citoyens, etc. Si l’épidémie n’a pas disparu, elle semble...

À partir d’une étude de terrain sur la vidéosurveillance, l’auteur montre que le déploiement de cette technologie n’a que peu d’impact sur la délinquance et est de plus en plus détourné vers la vidéo-verbalisation des infractions routières. Un monde sépare la réalité de terrain des discours politiques comme du marketing des industriels.

Depuis 2007, la doctrine officielle du ministère français de l’Intérieur n’a cessé d’affirmer que la vidéosurveillance est un outil de prévention, de dissuasion et d’élucidation des actes de délinquance. Le présent article vise à évaluer l’efficacité de la vidéosurveillance au regard de cette promesse. Il s’appuie sur une enquête de long terme (201...

Desde 2007, la doctrina oficial del Ministerio del Interior de Francia no ha dejado de afirmar que la videovigilancia es un instrumento de prevención, disuasión y esclarecimiento de los actos delictivos. Este artículo se propone evaluar la eficacia de la videovigilancia en vista de esta promesa. El trabajo se basa en una investigación de largo plaz...

A questão das catástrofes ambientais e sanitárias, causadas pelas actividades económicas humanas, tem sido cada vez mais divulgada desde os anos 70. Uma sociologia do ambiente e depois uma sociologia do risco desenvolveu-se nos Estados Unidos e depois na Europa. Mas só muito recentemente é que a sociologia do desvio se debruçou sobre estes temas, q...

The issue of environmental and health disasters caused by human economic activities has been increasingly publicized since the 1970s. Environmental sociology and then sociology of risk have been developed in the United States and then in Europe. But it is only very recently that the sociology of deviance has taken up these subjects, questioning the...

A l'heure d'importantes mobilisations contre les violences policières, Laurent Mucchielli montre que les chiffres de la délinquance témoignent de la dégradation des relations entre habitants et police, et du durcissement des politiques sécuritaires dans les banlieues populaires.

This article explores the stakes of the very intense controversy that has developed in France around the medical treatment of Covid-19 (which finds some parallels in the United States of America). It centres on the therapeutic proposal of a Marseilles doctor, who has become a very divisive ‘star’ in public debates over the efficacy of treatment. Th...

Is French identity threatened? Is massive African immigration on our doorstep? Is Islam contrary to the laws of the Republic and is it sneaking in everywhere with its veils, its hallal food and its terrorists? Are the descendants of immigrants responsible for the violence that has plagued the suburbs for decades? That is what racist nationalists ha...

This article investigates the peculiar history of sociology of deviance and criminology in France, from the end of the 19th until now. In the 1880s, the criminal questions invade the intellectual debate. I show how sociology (Gabriel Tarde and the Durkheimians) was largely built against biomedical determinisms. Then, the criminal question has condu...

Local, municipal police forces are making a noteworthy return to the police scene, both in relation to municipal organization and in the public debate in France since the 1980’s. The total workforce of the different types of local security agents now exceeds 30,000 people, from almost 3,500 cities. This rise used to stem from a strong demand for co...

The Development of a Security Ideology and its Consequences in France from the 1970s to the Present Day Since the 1970s, a security rhetoric in favor of strong repressive policies has gradually emerged in the French public space, in which it now dominates. The growing “insecurity,” a phenomenon particularly constructed around the so-called problem...

À partir de l'analyse d'un échantillon de dossiers judiciaires, l'auteur étudie les caractéristiques sociodémographiques et pénales des mineurs détenus fin 2014 à l'Établissement Pénitentiaire pour Mineurs (EPM) de Marseille, le seul EPM de France dont toutes les places sont régulièrement occupées. Il montre que, contrairement à la réputation dont...

Le fort développement de la vidéosurveillance dans l’espace public, en France, à partir des élections présidentielles de 2007, n’a pas fait l’objet d’évaluations scientifiques. Cet article propose une étude de cas et un travail de terrain dans une petite ville dotée d’un système de vidéosurveillance considéré comme exemplaire par les pouvoirs publi...

Ende der 1970er Jahre tauchte in Frankreich erneut das Phänomen von Unruhen auf. Es verstärkte sich in den 1990er Jahren und erfuhr im Jahr 2005 mit landesweiten Unruhen einen Höhepunkt. Seit dieser Zeit setzt es sich auf lokaler Ebene bis heute fort. Dieser Artikel stellt eine Synthese in den letzten Jahren in Frankreich durchgeführter Untersuchun...

The rapid growth of CCTV in public space in France, from the time of the presidential elections in 2007, has not been the object of scientific evaluation. This article provides a case study using field research in a small town equipped with a CCTV system considered as an good example by local government. The research showed that the CCTV provided n...