Quetelet, Adolph

Adolphe Quetelet, French astronomer, mathematician, statistician, and sociologist, 1796-1874, writing in 1828. 

One of the tenets of sociological positivism is that societal factors (poverty, membership in subcultures, low levels of education) create a predisposition to crime. Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet was one of the first to explore the relationship between crime and societal factors. He reported that poverty and low educational levels were important components in crime. British statistician Rawson W. Rawson linked population density and crime rates with statistics. He theorized that crowded cities create an environment conducive to crime and violence. French sociologist Emile Durkheim viewed crime as an inevitable consequence of the uneven distribution of wealth among the social classes. 

Velde, A. J. J. Van de (1948) Joseph Plateau 1801-1883, Briefwisseling met Adolphe Quetelet, chronologic en genealogie, Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en schone Kunsten van Belgie Klasse der Wetenschappen, jaargang X, No. 8, pp. 5-56. 

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