Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures - Oapen

Aims and Methodology of the Study 9
in the first half of 2008, this meeting was mainly devoted to discussion of the
questionnaire drafts already received.
It was agreed among the group members that the new and reformed parts of
the questionnaire should be tested among the experts group before a final questionnaire
to be sent to all national correspondent could be designed.
3.2.2 Development, distribution and evaluation of draft and subsidiary questionnaires
The next meeting took place in Paris in November 2007. Ahead of the meeting, a
first version of a trial questionnaire was drafted and circulated around group
members. The Paris meeting was devoted to the discussion of all the new and
expanded parts of the questionnaire. It was agreed that directly after the meeting,
two different questionnaires should be produced and distributed to the group
members:
The first questionnaire was the trial 4 th edition questionnaire. This questionnaire
was an expanded and improved update of the older ESB questionnaires,
using parts of the short 3 rd edition questionnaire and also parts of the older, but
more detailed 2 nd edition questionnaire. It was agreed that this questionnaire
should be sent to the group members and each should try to fill in the questionnaire
for his or her respective country. The members should concentrate on definitions
and data availability at this stage of the process. Data provision could
therefore be restricted to one year only, even in longitudinal data tables.
For certain new or improved offence definitions (bodily injury, fraud, computer
offences, money laundering and corruption) additional questions were developed,
aiming at definitional and data availability issues. It was clear that these additional
questions could and should not be included in a final questionnaire to be
sent round to all national correspondents. They would be used for the development
of final definitions and for the purposes of the AGIS project. Therefore,
they were compiled in a subsidiary questionnaire that had only to be filled in by
the experts’ group members for their respective countries.
It was agreed to finalize both questionnaires after the Paris meeting. The trial
and subsidiary questionnaires were sent to all group members in December 2007.
The answers received were evaluated afterwards.
3.2.3 Development and distribution of the final questionnaire
Based on that evaluation a new final questionnaire was proposed. There was some
discussion, and then the final questionnaire was completed in March 2008 and
circulated among all national correspondents of the group with a deadline ending
in May, allowing the group members to check the questionnaires that arrive in
time ahead of the Bonn conference.
This questionnaire was shorter than the trial version. Parts of the trial questionnaire
that did not work well due to poor data availability were dropped from