Defining and registering criminal offences and measures

Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures: Standards for a European Comparison, 2010

The study presented in this book is a direct response to the needs for defining and registering criminal and judicial data on the European level. Based upon work done by the European Sourcebook experts’ group in creating the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics (ESB), the project intended to improve and complement the standards developed so far for definitions and statistical registration in four fields, in order to contribute to the picture of criminal justice in Europe. It utilized questionnaires filled by an established European network. Possibilities to improve the offence definitions used so far in the ESB context were explored. Also, further crime types, especially those subject to EU-harmonized definition, were tested and introduced. Based on the results of recent projects of one of the editors (Jörg-Martin Jehle), the prosecution chapter of the ESB questionnaire was changed and expanded. Data collection possibilities regarding compulsory measures in the investigatory stage were tested, and a more sophisticated approach for recording sanctions and measures had been developed, as well as for prison data. As overarching issues, ways to collect data on pretrial detention and its surrogates and on aliens stemming from EU member states compared to those from other states were sought. The study explored how far national statistics can provide such data and developed a concept for collation on European level. The offence definitions and data collection instruments introduced and revised during the course of this project were tested and most of them were – albeit modified sometimes – included in the 4th edition ESB questionnaire. Thus, the 4th edition ESB is based on a questionnaire developed during this project. The ESB is published in parallel to this book (Aebi et al, European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics-2010, 4th edition, The Hague: Boom).

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research

Besides crime surveys, official data on crime and criminal justice are essential both for criminology and criminal policy. The number of offenses, prosecutions, convictions or prisoners gathered through crime and criminal justice statistics and the trends shown by these indicators provide valuable information for policy makers to assess and improve the existing criminal justice system (Aebi 2004; Aebi and Linde 2012; Jehle 2000, 2013). A broader look beyond the national level offers new perspectives: This is not only true for the introduction of new kinds of sanctions and measures or crime prevention, but also for the structure and organization of criminal justice authorities. Methodological issues related to the evaluation of criminal justice statistics, however, become more complex when comparing these data on an international level. Such an analysis has to consider legal and statistical differences between the criminal justice systems and their potential impacts on data availability and data comparability (Harrendorf 2012). This issue deals with international comparisons within Europe. The various articles refer to the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics as the main data source. This Sourcebook is a comparative data collection covering all stages of the criminal proceedings. Its first edition was published in 1999 and it included data from 1990 to 1996. It was continued by follow-up publications in the

2010

2014

The 5th Edition of the European Sourcebook is dedicated to the memory of Professor Hanns von Hofer of Stockholm University (1944-2014). Hanns was a member of the Council of Europe Group who developed the draft Sourcebook and he continued to be involved with the production of the early editions. His knowledge of criminology and statistics played a major part in developing the methodology used in the Sourcebook and later adopted by the United Nations and Eurostat. We have lost a good friend. This report has been built upon the knowledge, commitment and active contribution of many experts from all European countries. The editors would like to express their deep gratitude to everybody who contributed to this work and its successful completion. The questionnaire devised by the European Sourcebook group together with the Confederation of European Probation (CEP) has been discussed with and answered by the following national correspondents:

2021

This report has been built upon the knowledge, commitment, and active contribution of many experts from all European countries. The questionnaire devised by the European Sourcebook group has been discussed with and answered by the following national correspondents:

International Criminal Justice Review, 1996

This note presents the background to and current progress in a project undertaken by the Council of Europe to develop a European sourcebook on crime and criminal justice statistics. First results from the work in progress are included, highlighting the difficulties of such comparative studies and the need to match statistical data with background definitional information.

2007

Revue d'économie politique, 2019

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Since its beginnings, comparative criminology has suffered from the lack of valid international data on crime and criminal justice. Over several decades, efforts were made to improve international comparisons by new data collections. In this paper, three such data sources are compared. The results show that International Crime (Victim) Survey (ICVS) data are highly correlated with police data published in the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, at least for offences whose survey and police definitions closely match. On the other hand, Interpol statistics are only weakly correlated with ICVS and Sourcebook data. It is argued that the careful screening process within the Sourcebook project increases considerably the comparative validity of police data by the elimination of often trivial but devastating errors. Despite such improvements, survey data may remain more valid for cross-sectional analyses on personal crime and other offences where recording by the police is uncertain and often inconsistent. In any case, unchecked police data (as those published in Interpol Statistics) should not be used for comparative purposes.

Göttinger Studien zu den Kriminalwissenschaften, 2021

This report has been built upon the knowledge, commitment, and active contribution of many experts from all European countries. The questionnaire devised by the European Sourcebook group has been discussed with and answered by the following national correspondents: