Disorder and the law: a strange hostage-taking

Abstract

In the context of the successive crises that have marked France (terrorism, yellow vests protesters and COVID 19), the judge and the police are trying to respond as best they can to complexity. However, law and science seem to be victims of a strange hostage-taking even though complexity and disorder are constituent elements of reality and therefore subjects for scientific research. After illustrating the messiness and the complexity of the law with concrete examples, the author underlines the importance of science in the field of security and justice and regrets that competition between academic disciplines is hindering the development of a French school of criminology.