32 CRIME & DELINQUENCY January 1977 Crime Statistics: A Historical Perspective MICHAEL D. MALTZ Associate Professor, Departments of Criminal Justice and Systems Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle _____________ Crime statistics, in the form of Uniform Crime Reports, have been collected by the FBI since 1930. A dominant motivation for their collection was to combat the publicity about "crime waves" generated by the press. This paper analyzes the historical development of crime statistics from the standpoint of three questions that first arose over forty years ago: What kinds of statistics should be collected? Who should collect them? How accurate are they? Current developments in crime statistics, notably the initiation of the National Crime Panel Survey, have affected these three issues markedly. _____________ A CCORDING TO ROBINSON, 1 the theoretical foundation for crime statistics in the United States was supplied in 1835 by Quetelet's Treatise on Man. 2 Observing that, year after year, the proportional numbers of different crimes 3 occurring in France showed little variation and seeing. in the relative constancy of judicial statistics the glimmer of' a natural law of human behavior, Quetelet asserted that man must have within him a certain capacity for crime, a certain criminogenic propensity. Since he was satisfied with looking only at archival data, he was unaware of other reasons that could have explained this phenomenon: manpower limitations in law enforcement agencies, arrest quotas, a constant jail capacity, etc. From colonial days to the mid- nineteenth century no crime statistics were collected in the United States. The data which have been found by historians 4 are not crime statistics so much as arrest statistics or evidence of criminal trials. Cases were brought to the attention of the law enforcement agencies only if the complainant knew who had committed the crime. The local police officers were not law enforcement officers: their primary task was to maintain order. The constables, 1 L. N. Robinson, History and Organization of Criminal Statistics in the United States (Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1911). 2 L. A. J. Quetelet, A Treatise on Man [1835], tr. By S. Diamond (Gainesville Fla.: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1969). 3 Actually, Quetelet referred to only the "known and tried offenses" since "the sum total of crimes committed will probably ever continue unknown." Id . p. 82. 4 For example, F. Morn, The Eye that Never Sleeps: A Social History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (University of Chicago, unpub. doctoral dissertation, 1974): F. Powers. Crime and Punishment in Early Massachusetts, 1620-1692 (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press. 1966); R Semmes, Crime and Punishment in Early Maryland (Montclair, N.J.: Patterson Smith. 1970); E. M. Steel "Criminality in Jeffersonian America-A Sample," Crime and Delinquency, April 1972. pp 154-59.