Introduction

This chapter deals with the history of crime – or, to put it another way, with crime as social history – in Germany and France during the nineteenth century. Everyone knows that crime is more frequent today than it was in the stable rural milieu of our grandparents and great grandparents. Modernity implies a decline in respect for conventions, a reduction in social controls, a lessening of appreciation for the rights and property of others. The city, in the popular view, is characterised by instability, impersonal relationships, social disorganisation and weakened social controls; it is the paradigm of modern society. Moreover, the use of general indexes of crime – such as total crime or total crimes against persons and property – is practically ruled out. Even the best crime indexes retain certain built-in distortions, some of which operate randomly while others operate systematically.