Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics? Nineteenth Century Crime Statistics for England and Wales as a Historical Source

Abstract

Abstract Criminal statistics for England and Wales have been collected since 1810, presenting the historian of crime with a wealth of information on crime and criminality in the nineteenth century. Contemporary commentators as well as historians, however, have raised a number of questions about both the reliability and validity of the statistics, with some suggesting that they can tell us little or nothing about crime in the period. This article reviews this debate, describing both the development of criminal statistics over the course of the nineteenth century and examining the debate among historians about their relative utility in constructing an image of crime and criminality in the period.