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Produced by the French prison administration on a yearly basis from 1852 to 1939, the Statistique pénitentiaire provides considerable statistical information about prison conditions. This study tracks the production and uses of these figures, from their conception to their exploitation. We find there is a stark contrast between the substantial resources deployed to establish these documents, the great variety of information they contain, and how little they appear to be used. Originally designed as a tool to guide prison reform, the numbers in the Statistique pénitentiaire were produced at each level of the administration of every prison facility. Nevertheless, while prisons and crime were at the heart of public debate in the late nineteenth century, their relevance outside the prison administration appears to have been marginal. The more prestigious judicial statistics were much preferred in public debate and were more likely than prison statistics to influence political deliberations over repeat offending. In 1911, a project to combine the two documents into one emerged. This could have been an opportunity for prison figures to play a more prominent role in the study of crime, but the failure of the project confirmed the lack of interest in this source and its content was further impoverished by the removal of information on individual prisoners. By questioning the usefulness of a source that was apparently of such little interest, this paper aims to reexamine the relationship between statistics, prisons, and the state.