EHC-WG Panel 3. Author Meets Critics: Kivivuori, Janne (2024): Crime and Civilization. The Birth of Criminology in the Early Nineteenth Century. Oxford University Press.

Session Submission Type: Author meets critics

Abstract

In 1827, the first modern national crime statistics were published: the 'Compte général de l'administration de la justice criminelle en France'. Described by contemporaries as a national monument, the French model became a paradigmatic exemplar of how modern crime statistics should be compiled and presented. Soon after its publication, it was used by several scholars in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany to analyse patterns of crime, to reflect on the limitations of administrative statistics, and to call for evidence based criminal justice reform.

Before the onset of data criminology, the perception of crime relied on sources from classical antiquity, rational philosophical thought, travellers' observations, and unsystematic observations by criminal justice practitioners. With the new concept of national crime statistics, it became possible to test theories and hypotheses about crime using a shared data instrument, leading to an unprecedented avalanche of crime research by continental scholars. The new asset was used to solve the problem of how civilization impacts morality, and to counteract biases by anchoring claims about crime to a shared database.

'Crime and Civilization: The Birth of Criminology in the Early Nineteenth Century' explores the rise of data-based criminology as an intellectual field in Europe in the early nineteenth century. The book offers a new interpretation of the era of 'first criminology,' one approached from the perspective of data and instruments, thus complementing the traditional story based on theories and explanatory shifts from 'classicism' to 'positivism' and beyond. Drawing on original publications, the book contextualizes the rise of criminology in wider cultural history, spanning from Enlightenment philosophers to the general rise of science in society.

Subtopic

• Topic 7: Comparative and Historical Perspectives / Historical Comparisons of Crime (Historical Criminology WG)

Critics

• Marcelo F. Aebi, University of Lausanne

• Shadd Maruna, University of Liverpool

• Henry Yeomans, University of Leeds

Book Author

• Janne Kivivuori, University of Helsinki