The beginning of the Third Republic in France in 1870 was marked by a striking series of events, including the brutal repression of the Paris Commune; the arrival of parliamentary politics; the establishment of compulsory State education; Divorce Law reform; the development of the railways; and the growing availability of affordable daily newspapers. In addition, from the 1880s onwards, these were joined by the onset of economic recession, and a heated debate about scientific progress. Crime and criminal justice were also widely discussed during this period, against a backdrop of what would soon become known as “the crisis of crime” (crise de la répression). One of the apparent symptoms of this “crisis” was a persistent rise in recidivism, a trend revealed by the government statistics published each year by the Compte général de l'administration de la justice criminelle. Political initiatives promising solutions to this “curse” abounded. In 1872, for example, a parliamentary committee was set up to investigate the prison system, and in particular the conditions in which juvenile criminals were detained. The committee's report drew an alarming picture and recommended as a matter of urgency the separate confinement of inmates. Between 1872 and 1885, a number of laws were passed aimed at tackling the apparent rise in crime. These included laws on public drunkenness (1873); the official adoption of the principle of separate confinement in France's county prisons (1875); the transportation of recidivists (1885); the creation of parole (1885); and of the suspended sentence (1891). Finally, in 1877, two years after the passage of the legislation giving official sanction to the generalization of separate confinement in France's prisons, the Société générale des Prisons was created, with the aim of generating “parliamentary initiatives” in this area. Accorded charitable status in 1889, this learned society would remain, in the period to 1914, an important focus of reflection and debate as well as legislative proposals in the field of French penal policy.

During the same period, many scientists and other experts in the criminal justice field became convinced that in order to tackle crime successfully, it was essential to possess an objective, scientific understanding of what made criminals tick.