Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures - Oapen

Criminal Offences Total 31
Table B.4 shows the results of the evaluation of the additional questionnaire:
In all responding countries major traffic offences are separately identifiable in
criminal law. However, many countries added the remark that the border line
between major and minor traffic offences was not clearly determined in their
countries. Also, for all countries except UK: England and Wales, all “other offences”
defined as criminal by the law and subject to criminal proceedings were
separately identifiable. Regarding minor offences, separate identifiability is not
always the case, as can be seen from table 4.
6. Conclusion
The reformed definition for “criminal offences total” worked quite well. The renaming
of the traffic offence category from “traffic offences defined as criminal
by the law” to “major traffic offences” in the new version is an improvement,
since now the inclusion of traffic offences does no more depend on the quite
accidental question whether an offence is defined as criminal. This might even be
the case for parking offences in some countries.
With respect to minor offences defined as criminal by the law and subject to
proceedings outside the criminal justice system, the general exclusion rule proved
to be right. On the other hand, the rules for inclusion of minor property and minor
violent offences, even if subject to proceedings outside the criminal justice
system, might be subject to revision in a 5 th edition of the ESB.