Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures - Oapen

A. Aims and Methodology of the Study
1. Introduction
This book presents the main results of a study on “Standards for Defining and
Registering Crime Types, Public Prosecution Service Disposals, Court Sentences
and Improving Correction Statistics”. The study was funded by the European
Commission under the AGIS programme (JLS/2006/AGIS/134) and was conducted
by the European Sourcebook (ESB) experts group. The project phase
lasted from November 2006 to October 2008.
Based upon work done by the ESB experts group in creating the “European
Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics” 1, it was 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. During the course of the project, 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.
1 COUNCIL OF EUROPE (ed.): European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics,
Strasbourg: Council of Europe 2000; AEBI et al.: European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal
Justice Statistics – 2003, 2nd edition, Den Haag: Boom 2003; AEBI et. al.: European Sourcebook
of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics – 2006, 3rd edition, Den Haag: Boom 2006. The
4 th edition was expanded based on the results of this study: AEBI et. al: European Sourcebook
of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics – 2010, 4th edition, Den Haag: Boom 2010.