Considerations on the Crimes Statistics: A Translation of Considérations Sur la Statistique Des Délits

This paper provides an English translation of Considérations Sur la Statistique Des Délits, originally written by Alphonse de Candolle and published in 1830 in the Bibliothèque Universelle, Geneva. The source text used for this translation was a 1987 reprint. Translation was produced using Google Translate and is offered as a working translation to make this historically significant text accessible to English speaking researchers. Comments and corrections from fluent French translators are welcome. De Candolle's 1830 paper is one of the earliest known discussions of comparative crime statistics and the methodological challenges involved in comparing crime rates between regions and time periods. De Candolle appears to be the first to recognize that crime is a function of both individual propensity and the level of societal sanctioning. Quetelet (1833) acknowledges de Candolle's contribution in his revised edition of Recherches sur le penchant au crime aux differens ages, suggesting de Candolle's priority on this insight was recognized by his contemporaries. This translation is provided because de Candolle's work appears to be cited in the contemporary criminological literature on comparative criminology but has remained largely inaccessible to English speaking researchers. The translator's own work on the mathematical relationship between criminal propensity and societal sanctioning connects directly to de Candolle's foundational insights, as does the propensity-selection threshold model developed in The Physics of Living Systems. It is hoped that making this text available will spur renewed interest in de Candolle's contributions to the early history of criminology and crime statistics.