This thesis is an intellectual genealogy of counting crime in New South Wales. It is a history of a system of thought which is one of the contemporary foundations of the way we interpret the nature and extent of crime today. It argues that the incitement to annually record crime statistics in New South Wales, and internationally, is immediately connected with a will to govern crime. This thesis traces this bonding of the technology of crime statistics with mentalities of government, and maintains that although the connection of these two discourses has been highly effective, it has not been one of universal domination. This is a history of the continuous state practice of compiling and publishing crime statistics. But it is also a history of discontinuities. This thesis regularly investigates shifts in the categories of recording. It locates changes in what is recorded by broadening its discussion to include localised and international debates on crime that are contemporaneous to these changes. This is not a thesis with a project to improve the way in which we record or utilise crime statistics. Its project is to write a history of how we came to record crime statistics and how we have intended to utilise these crime statistics in our practices of government. It traces the rise of counting crime and interrogates it as one of the key technologies deployed in the government of crime / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)