André-Michel Guerry
Encyclopedia
André-Michel Guerry was a French
lawyer and amateur statistician
. Together with Adolphe Quetelet
he may be regarded as the founder of moral statistics
which led to the development of criminology
, sociology
and ultimately, modern social science.
, Indre-et-Loire
, the only child of Michel Guerry, a building contractor, whose family had a long history as innkeepers, merchants, farmers and trades-people. About 1817-1820 he studied at the Imperial College of Tours (now the Lyceum Descartes, founded in 1807) and subsequently studied law at the University of Poitiers
.
About 1824-1825 he moved to Paris
and was admitted to the bar as a royal advocate. Shortly after, he was employed by the Ministry of Justice. Guerry worked with the data on crime statistics in France collected as part of the General office for administration of criminal justice in France, the first centralized national system of crime reporting. Guerry was so fascinated with these data, and the possibility to discover empirical regularities and laws that might govern them, that he gave up the active practice of law to devote the rest of his life to study crime and its relation to other moral variables.
was a large, one page sheet containing three shaded maps of France
, prepared together with the Venetian geographer, Adriano Balbi in 1829. These showed the departments of France, shaded according to crimes against persons, crimes against
property, and school instruction. Such statistical maps, now called choropleth maps had just been invented in 1826 by Baron Charles Dupin
.
Guerry is best known for his Essay on moral statistics of France,
presented to the French Academy of Sciences on July 2, 1832 and published in 1833 after it was awarded the Prix Montyon in statistics. His presentation, in tables and thematic map
s, showed that rates of crime and suicide remained remarkably stable over time, when broken down by age, sex, region of France and even season of the year. Yet, these numbers also varied systematically across departments of France. This regularity of social numbers created the possibility to conceive that human actions could be described by social laws, just as inanimate actions were governed by physical laws.
Throughout his career, Guerry was particularly interested in uncovering the relation between social and moral variables. How are personal crime and property related to each other, and to suicide, donations to the poor, illegitimate births, wealth, and so forth? How do different types of crimes vary with age of the accused? Statistical methods (correlation
and regression
) were still in their infancy, so Guerry relied on graphic comparisons of maps and semi-graphic tables. Shown below are three of the six thematic maps that Guerry included in his Essay.
s found by the police in Paris over a four year period. He classified these by the apparent motive expressed for taking one's life, perhaps the first content analysis
in the social sciences.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
lawyer and amateur statistician
Statistician
A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...
. Together with Adolphe Quetelet
Adolphe Quetelet
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences...
he may be regarded as the founder of moral statistics
Moral statistics
Moral statistics most narrowly refers to numerical data generally considered to be indicative of social pathology in groups of people. Examples include statistics on crimes , illiteracy, suicide, illegitimacy, abortion, divorce, prostitution, and the economic situation sometimes called pauperism...
which led to the development of criminology
Criminology
Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...
, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and ultimately, modern social science.
Early life and education
Guerry was born in ToursTours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
, Indre-et-Loire
Indre-et-Loire
Indre-et-Loire is a department in west-central France named after the Indre and the Loire rivers.-History:Indre-et-Loire is one of the original 83 départements created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
, the only child of Michel Guerry, a building contractor, whose family had a long history as innkeepers, merchants, farmers and trades-people. About 1817-1820 he studied at the Imperial College of Tours (now the Lyceum Descartes, founded in 1807) and subsequently studied law at the University of Poitiers
University of Poitiers
The University of Poitiers is a university in Poitiers, France. It is a member of the Coimbra Group.-History:Founded in 1431 by Pope Eugene IV and chartered by King Charles VII, the University of Poitiers was originally composed of five faculties: theology, canon law, civil law, medicine, and...
.
About 1824-1825 he moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and was admitted to the bar as a royal advocate. Shortly after, he was employed by the Ministry of Justice. Guerry worked with the data on crime statistics in France collected as part of the General office for administration of criminal justice in France, the first centralized national system of crime reporting. Guerry was so fascinated with these data, and the possibility to discover empirical regularities and laws that might govern them, that he gave up the active practice of law to devote the rest of his life to study crime and its relation to other moral variables.
Moral statistics and criminology
Guerry's first work on what would come to be called moral statisticsMoral statistics
Moral statistics most narrowly refers to numerical data generally considered to be indicative of social pathology in groups of people. Examples include statistics on crimes , illiteracy, suicide, illegitimacy, abortion, divorce, prostitution, and the economic situation sometimes called pauperism...
was a large, one page sheet containing three shaded maps of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, prepared together with the Venetian geographer, Adriano Balbi in 1829. These showed the departments of France, shaded according to crimes against persons, crimes against
property, and school instruction. Such statistical maps, now called choropleth maps had just been invented in 1826 by Baron Charles Dupin
Charles Dupin
Pierre Charles François Dupin was a French Catholic mathematician.He studied geometry with Monge at the École Polytechnique and then became a naval engineer. In 1819 he was appointed professor at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers; he kept this post until 1854...
.
Guerry is best known for his Essay on moral statistics of France,
presented to the French Academy of Sciences on July 2, 1832 and published in 1833 after it was awarded the Prix Montyon in statistics. His presentation, in tables and thematic map
Thematic map
A thematic map is a type of map or chart especially designed to show a particular theme connected with a specific geographic area. These maps "can portray physical, social, political, cultural, economic, sociological, agricultural, or any other aspects of a city, state, region,nation , or...
s, showed that rates of crime and suicide remained remarkably stable over time, when broken down by age, sex, region of France and even season of the year. Yet, these numbers also varied systematically across departments of France. This regularity of social numbers created the possibility to conceive that human actions could be described by social laws, just as inanimate actions were governed by physical laws.
Throughout his career, Guerry was particularly interested in uncovering the relation between social and moral variables. How are personal crime and property related to each other, and to suicide, donations to the poor, illegitimate births, wealth, and so forth? How do different types of crimes vary with age of the accused? Statistical methods (correlation
Correlation
In statistics, dependence refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. Correlation refers to any of a broad class of statistical relationships involving dependence....
and regression
Regression analysis
In statistics, regression analysis includes many techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables...
) were still in their infancy, so Guerry relied on graphic comparisons of maps and semi-graphic tables. Shown below are three of the six thematic maps that Guerry included in his Essay.
| Personal crime | Property crime | Instruction |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
Suicide
In addition to a map of France showing rates of suicide by department, Guerry collected all the suicide noteSuicide note
A suicide note or death note is a message that states the author has died by suicide, and left to be discovered and read in anticipation of suicide....
s found by the police in Paris over a four year period. He classified these by the apparent motive expressed for taking one's life, perhaps the first content analysis
Content analysis
Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."According to Dr...
in the social sciences.
Major works
- Guerry, André-Michel. 1829. Mémoire sur les variations méterologiques comparées aux phénomènes physiologiques. Annales d'Hygiène Publique et de Médecine Légal 1:228.
- Guerry, André-Michel. 1833. Essai sur la statistique morale de la France. Paris: Crochard. Gallica
- Guerry, André-Michel. 1864. Statistique morale de l'Angleterre comparée avec la statistique morale de la France, d'après les comptes de l'administration de la justice criminelle en Angleterre et en France, etc. Paris: J.-B. Baillière et fils.
- Balbi, Adriano, and André-Michel Guerry. 1829. Statistique comparée de l'état de l'instruction et du nombre des crimes dans les divers arrondissements des Académies et des Cours Royales de France. Paris.
External links
- Friendly M. (2007) A.-M. Guerry's Moral Statistics of France: Challenges for Multivariable Spatial Analysis, Statistical Science, 22 (3), 368-399. Project Euclid