European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics - 2006

Abstract

In 1993, the Council of Europe charged a Committee of Experts with the preparation of a feasibility study concerning collection of crime and criminal justice data for Europe. There were reservations regarding the comparability of legal systems, offence definitions and data collection procedures between different countries but it was recognised that, despite similar problems (such as offence definitions and data collection procedures which may vary between U.S. States as they do between European countries), the American Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics provides information on all the U.S. States. The members of the Council of Europe’s experts’ committee decided to carry out a feasibility study by collecting data on offences and offenders recorded by the police, prosecutions, convictions and corrections through members of that Committee who had access to the data in 10 particular countries. The report was received favourably and in 1995, the Council of Europe decided to enlarge the Committee in order to include other parts of Europe. The first official edition of the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics was published by the Council of Europe in 1999. It covered 36 countries and relied on national correspondents in each country. After the first edition, the Council of Europe was no longer able to sustain the costs of the project. The UK Home Office, the Dutch Ministry of Justice Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) and the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs (through the University of Lausanne) appreciated the value of such a publication and a network of national correspondents. Consequently, they agreed to share the financial and other resource implications in order to produce a second edition. A smaller Committee of Experts reviewed the first edition in an attempt to improve the comparability of the figures wherever feasible. After the publication of the second edition in late 2003, several contacts were made in order to stabilize the project under a different umbrella. It turned out, however, that a new formula could not be found within reasonable time limits. In order to avoid that data become outdated, the Committee decided to publish the present (third) edition, concentrating on updating trend data on offences and offenders known to the police as well as convictions and corrections. For more detailed analyses, such as sentencing patterns and alternative sanctions, the available resources did not allow for updates on the information contained in the second edition. For these – rather stable – areas, the reader will have to consult the second edition or the European Sourcebook website. Finally, the website will also contain information on errors in the second edition and raw data including comments provided by our national correspondents.