Crime in the first twenty volumes of the Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 1838-1857

• In Event: EHC-WG Panel 1: Expanding the Knowledge Base on Crime in History

Abstract

Triggered by the booming continental criminology after the emergence of modern national crime statistics in France (1827), British research on crime increased considerably from the mid-1830s. The first wave of research was, to a significant degree, published in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London. According to Radzinowicz and Hood (1986), the first twenty volumes of the Journal (1838-1857) contained 22 articles on various aspects of crime. We examine the aims, topics, and possible trends in this early criminological research corpus. These patterns are tentatively discussed from the perspective of how data availability and the social context influence disciplinary emergence and development.

Authors

• Janne Kivivuori, University of Helsinki

• Henry Yeomans, University of Leeds