The whole extent of the evil: Origin of crime statistics in the United States, 1880-1930

This article traces the origin and the development of crime statistics in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Due to the federal nature of the polity and decentralization of state power, the historical process of "governmentalization" of the state in the US differed markedly from other Western European nations. The path to the establishment of a national archive of crime statistics in the US was especially tortuous, and its trajectory was shaped by strategic alliances as well as conflicts between various institutional actors involved in the process.