Perspectives of the Computational Approach as a Method for Criminological Research

• Autore: Fabrizio Caccavale
• Pagine: 169-170

Perspectives of the Computational Approach

as a Method for Criminological Research

FABRI ZIO CACCAVALE∗

SUMM ARY:1. Statistics as a Consolidated Tool of Criminological Research – 2. Data

Processing and Their Interpolation: The Computer Tool – 3. The New Frontiers of the

Computational Method in the Criminology Domain

1. STATI STI CS AS A CO NSO LIDAT ED TOOL OF CR IMI NOL OGI CAL RE-

SEA RCH

In criminological research methodology, the use of quantitative methods

plays a very important role contributing to the very spirit of the subject mat-

ter. Studies with a sociological matrix on crime, already existing from the

1800s, try to explain the essence of it through the analysis of the “ultimate

cause” of its manifestations, and the use of systematised data for its descrip-

tion becomes a signif‌icant moment in the research. In fact, “the image of

criminology as a synthetic science is justif‌ied if it is understood in terms of

empirical science, characterised by the inductive methodand founded on ob-

servation, that is, if criminology is considered the result of a systematisation

of assertions that describe observations and if we believe that criminological

knowledge must be built on the basis of principles of observatism”1.

The studies carried out by Quetelet (from Belgium) and Guerry (from

France) are recognized as the f‌irst important statistical studies2, and these

became of utmost importance in the criminological domain for qualitative

and quantitative knowledge of delinquency, for both verifying the interpre-

tations of this phenomenon offered on a theoretical level and for offering

measures aimed at preventing and containing its spread.

∗The Author is assistant professor of Criminology and criminal law at “Federico II”

University,Naples (Italy).

1M. COCO , F.M ICHE LUZZ I, G. PISA PIA,Cr iminologia. Norme e regole, Torino, UTET,

2003, pp. 11-12.

2Adolphe Quetelet and Andrè-Michel Guerry are recognised as the founders of moral

statistics, embryo and founding element of criminal sociology, and promoters of the Car-

tographic or Geographic School who interpret the delinquency phenomenon with a statis-

tic geographic representation of its distribution analysing the relationship existing between

socio-demographic factors and f‌luctuations in crime indexes (amplius, A.J. QUETELET,

Physique sociale ou Essai sur le développement des facultés de l’homme, Bruxelles, Hayez, 1835;

A.-M. GUER RY,Essai sur la statistique morale de la France, Paris, Grochard,1833).

“Informatica e diritto”, Vol. XXII, 2013, n. 1, pp. 169-179

XXXIX annata – Seconda Serie - Fasc. monografico S. Faro, N. Lettieri (a cura di), "Law and Computational Social Science", ESI, Napoli, 2013, 352 p.