What do Arsène Lupin, the gentleman burglar, Mister Hyde, the evil double of Doctor Jekyll and Danny Ocean, the earthy gang leader of the blockbuster, have in common? Ocean Eleven ? They are crooks. Yes, but still? All three operate at night, taking advantage of the darkness and the sleeping city to commit their misdeeds. Is midnight, as in the collective imagination, really the hour of the crime? Does crime thrive at night?
Claude Cancès may well have been retired for fifteen years now, his memories of his thirty-five years spent in the ranks of the Parisian judicial police, in particular at the head of the mythical 36, quai des Orfèvres – the headquarters of the crime squad – are intact. “It’s true that at the time, we were often seized in the evening or at night. “. However, insists the commissioner, the discovery of a corpse at a late hour is not necessarily synonymous with a crime committed at that time. “When someone does not give a sign of life during the day or does not return home, their relatives start to worry, to look for her. This may explain why there were more reports at that time, ”he underlines.
Few studies on the subject
The problem is that in this area, the figures are sorely lacking. No recent study conducted in France deals with night delinquency. There are a few Anglo-Saxon works, but most are dated and comparing what is happening in San Francisco or Los Angeles in the 2000s and in France today is far too dangerous an exercise for our little person. “We tend to be more interested in geographical division, in particular to adapt the workforce and the response implemented, than in the hours of commission of the facts”, explains a police source.
However, let us try to see more clearly. If we look at all the facts recorded by the national police in 2022 – attacks on persons or property, crimes or misdemeanors – we find that more than 35% of them were committed between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. By way of comparison, almost the same number of events are recorded for the 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. time slot as for the 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. time slot (about 25%). More speaking still, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., the police recorded during the year nearly 30,000 facts against 18,700 between midnight and 2 a.m. But how then to explain this feeling of insecurity, much more significant at night, especially among women?
70% of rapes at night
While there is no general study on night crime, some research work, notably conducted by the Observatory of Delinquency and Criminal Responses (ONDRP) – now dissolved – highlights the temporal specificities of different crimes and misdemeanors. For example, 80% of burglaries take place during the day: one in two between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. and one in four between 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Logically, there is more chance of finding an empty apartment or house at these times, when the owners are at work, than at 10 p.m. Conversely, car thefts or attempted thefts take place in three quarters of cases at night. Again no wonder, the criminals know that the vehicle should not move for several hours and the activity in the streets is less intense.
One question remains: are the most serious acts committed at night? Without a general study on the subject, it is difficult to answer them precisely. On the issue of rape, however, an investigation by the ONDRP clearly establishes a link between the night and acting out. Of the researchers were interested in 688 rapes committed in Paris between 2013 and 2014: 70% of them took place at a very late hour. If the image of the prowler on the lookout in the streets is overused – the vast majority of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim – the consumption of alcohol, rather associated with the evening, seems to be a lead explanation. According to the terms of this study, 58% of weekend rapes are against a person who is “intoxicated”, that is to say under the influence of alcohol and more rarely narcotics. .
The role of alcohol
This lead could also explain, at least in part, that intentional assault and battery, whether criminal or tort, generally occurs between 6 p.m. and 3 a.m. A peak is recorded in the night from Saturday to Sunday. Moreover, if there is no temporal study on the commission of homicides, we now know that one in three feminicides is committed by a perpetrator who has consumed alcohol.
However, violence is not the prerogative of the night. The latest survey Living environment and security, published in 2021, pointed out that 62% of reported physical violence took place during the day. This is particularly the case for one of the most frequent offences: theft with violence. The highest frequencies are recorded between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.*. Verbal violence, such as threats or insults, is also in the vast majority of cases formulated in broad daylight.
* ONDRP study conducted in 2019