History of Criminal Statistics (1908-1933)

Abstract

In order to judge the progress that has been made in the field of criminal statistics during the last twenty-five years, it is necessary to summarize what had been accomplished prior to the beginning of this period. In my book, History and Organization of Criminal Statistics in the United States, published in 1911, I stated that New York had started to collect judicial criminal statistics in 1829, a practice which twenty-four other states had finally adopted. The statistics were derived from reports required by law to be sent by the states' attorneys or clerks of criminal courts to some state official (attorney general, secretary of state or governor). In spite of the fact that in some of the states the work had been going on for many years, I found that very little real progress had been made either in the collection or in the analysis of the figures and that with very few exceptions the reports were of little or no scientific value. Some twenty-three states were collecting statistics of prisoners under authority of laws requiring sheriffs and wardens of state institutions to send reports either to the secretary of state (in the case of three states) or to a state board. Only one of these, that of Massachusetts, was characterized by the author as good. Four reasons for the poor quality of the judicial and the prison criminal statistics were given. The double purpose in collecting the figures, namely, to furnish information for administrative purposes and to give an index of the nature and extent of criminality had not been well understood nor carried out. The second reason was the lack of statistical training on the part of those engaged in collecting and analyzing the figures. The work had also been done in a lackadaisical fashion merely to carry out the letter of the law. The fourth reason was that the spoils system reaching usually down to the lowest official in the administration of justice made scientific work well-nigh impossible. Federal criminal statistics, I showed, began with the collection of statistics of criminals at the census of 1850 under a law which