Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures - Oapen

Preface
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 pre-trial 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 mod-