Crime and Justice Atlas

How Justice Is Served
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Criminologists and Reformers

Adolphe Quetelet

ad-OLF ket-LAY
Criminological Theorists and Social Scientists

A Belgian astronomer and statistician who was among the first to apply statistics to social phenomena, showing that crime rates vary regularly with age, sex, season, poverty and education. With Andre-Michel Guerry he helped establish the cartographic school of criminology, and his idea that recorded crime understates real crime became the concept now called the dark figure of crime. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account
1796 1
Death YearSourced to the subject's own account
1874 1
Nationality
Belgian 2
Defining ContributionSourced to the subject's own account
Founded the statistical study of crime, demonstrating regularities in crime rates across social factors and laying the quantitative foundation criminology still builds on. 1
Connections

Associated With

His statistical work with Andre-Michel Guerry helped establish the positivist school of criminology.

Source Wikipedia: Adolphe Quetelet

Informed

Quetelet's statistical work established that recorded crime understates real crime.

Source Wikipedia: Dark Figure of Crime
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Adolphe Quetelet
2. Wikidata: Adolphe Quetelet
Wikidata Q20012, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source
Wikipedia: Dark Figure of Crime
Informed: Dark Figure of CrimeView the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.