ABSTRACT
One of the most exciting aspects of nineteenth-century criminology was the development of statistics – first the stunning accomplishment of organizing national, ongoing censuses of criminals and then the feat of learning how to use the data to test both theories and the efficacy of new policies. Most important of all was the realization that statistics could reveal, as no number of case studies could, the social nature of crime – the social forces operating behind and on the individual that no one could begin to identify without statistical methods.
