Statistics on Crime and Criminal Justice. Working Group Meeting. Luxembourg, 10 March Ampère Room, Bech Building

Transcription

1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate F: Social Statistics Doc. CR/WG2016/08 DRAFT MINUTES Statistics on Crime and Criminal Justice Working Group Meeting Luxembourg, 10 March 2016 Ampère Room, Bech Building

2 1. Welcome and introduction The meeting was chaired by Jean-Louis Mercy, Head of Eurostat Unit F1 (Social indicators: Methodology and development; Relations with users) who welcomed the participants to the meeting. Twenty-five Member States were represented at the meeting (the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Malta did not attend). The other countries represented at the meeting were Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Norway. In addition, representatives were present from the two Commission Directorates- General: Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME), and Justice and Consumers (DG JUST), the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the European Institute for Gender Equality, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the European Sourcebook and GOPA Luxembourg Sàrl. 2. Adoption of the agenda (Doc. CR/WG2016/01.rev2) Mr Mercy presented the draft agenda and described the areas that would be covered during the meeting. The agenda was adopted. 3. Adoption of the draft minutes of the previous meeting (Doc. CR/WG2015/08) The chair then invited the Working Group to approve the draft minutes of the previous meeting held on March The minutes were adopted without any modifications. 4. Update on Commission policies and activities in the field of crime and criminal justice Richard Caine from DG HOME (Organised Crime Unit) summarised DG HOME s activities over the previous year, which included analyses of the data collected on cybercrime (in relation to Article 14 of Directive 2013/40/EU) and on corruption (in relation to Articles of the UN Convention against corruption). A follow-up data collection on corruption, which covers the reference year 2014, has been launched via the DG HOME national focal points. A data collection on trafficking in human beings was also undertaken by DG HOME to provide 2013 and 2014 results for the Anti-Trafficking Coordinator s report on the progress made in the fight against trafficking in human beings. The DG HOME Action Plan for the next five years is being prepared and will focus on improving the quality of the data on crime and criminal justice and extending the coverage to other categories of crime with a cross-border dimension. The Action Plan is expected to be finalised in October 2016 and the views of the Working Group will be invited during the drafting process. Aleksandra Domanska from DG HOME (Irregular Migration and Return Policy Unit) described the EU Action Plan against migrant smuggling which was published last year and which refers to the inclusion of statistics on migrant smuggling offences in future annual Eurostat collections of crime statistics. Sammy Lauritsen from DG JUST (General Justice Policies and Judicial Systems Unit) then described the recent work on the fourth edition of the EU Justice Scoreboard, which uses data from a range of sources in order to provide an overview of the functioning of national justice systems. 1

3 5. Eurostat-UNODC joint annual data collection 5.1 Review of 2015 data collection, metadata and methodological guide (Doc. CR/WG2016/04) Anissa Amjahad from GOPA Luxembourg Sàrl (GOPA) summarised the response of countries to the 2015 joint Eurostat-UNODC data collection and highlighted variations in the response rates to different sections of the joint questionnaire. Overall, around half of the data requested were transmitted to Eurostat. However, in some jurisdictions certain basic data were not provided, e.g. the number of persons brought into formal contact with the police and/or criminal justice system, and data on the victims of rape. Members of the Working Group were invited to consider how the completion rates for the joint data collection could be improved in the 2016 data collection. Some reference metadata information was also not provided and the Working Group was asked whether the information in Annex 2 of Doc. CR/WG2016/04 was correct. The Working Group was also asked to comment on the draft table of contents of the proposed methodological guide for data users. Following the presentation by GOPA, Michael Jandl from the UNODC informed the Working Group that the UNODC is pleased with the cooperation with Eurostat and emphasized the need for strong links between national criminal justice authorities to facilitate the provision of more complete information. Where possible, the UNODC would like countries to work towards earlier delivery dates in the future. In the subsequent discussion, several countries provided responses regarding missing categories of data. In particular, it was agreed that in future Denmark would provide data on arrested persons; the United Kingdom would provide some corrected reference metadata details; and Greece would send Eurostat a copy of a methodological note on national crime data that had been recently produced. Some errors in Annex 2 of Doc. CR/WG2016/04 were identified, concerning the geographical coverage for the prosecution and court services in The Netherlands and the reference metadata for robbery. Countries were asked to continue to send revised data via the single-entry point edamis system, and Eurostat would explore how to prevent the UNODC automatically receiving copies of edamis data files unnecessarily. Jörg-Martin Jehle (European Sourcebook) said he was very happy with the progress made with the annual data collection and offered support to Eurostat in the development of the metadata structure. In response to a question on the type of cases that should be included in the questions on administration of justice, DG JUST proposed that a distinction be made in future between litigious and non-litigious civil and commercial cases, to improve the comparability between national figures. Regarding the proposed methodological guide, it was suggested that a section on victims should be included in section 1.2, alongside sections on police, prosecution, court and prison New data requirements for 2016 Stephen Clarke from Eurostat (Crime and criminal justice statistics) informed the Working Group that Eurostat plans to incorporate three new areas of data into the annual data collection, concerning the number of third country convicted nationals, trafficking in human beings offences and migrant smuggling offences. The data on third country nationals will be a disaggregation of the current data item 7.10 (convicted 2

4 foreign citizens) into (a) convicted EU citizens and (b) convicted non-eu citizens. This change will take effect in June 2016, when the next annual Eurostat-UNODC questionnaire is sent out to countries. The regular collection of official statistics on trafficking in human beings offences and migrant smuggling offences will be introduced in September and will collect summary data on the number of recorded offences and on the number of people involved at the investigation, prosecution, conviction and prison stages. Five categories of trafficking in human beings offences will be included in accordance with the International Classification of Crime for Statistical purposes (ICCS): All trafficking in persons (TIP), TIP for sexual exploitation, TIP for forced labour or services, TIP for organ removal, and TIP for other purposes. In addition, some additional disaggregations will be defined for trafficking in human beings and migrant smuggling offences. In order to allow time for the table layouts to be finalised and for guidance notes on trafficking and migrant offences to be drafted, the data for these offences will be requested later, in September In future years it is planned to request all the data at the same time in June. Michael Jandl then described the content of the UNODC questionnaire which Eurostat will send to countries this year covering the 6 years up to The main changes concern changes to the definitions of crimes, which have been adjusted to be in line with the ICCS. More substantial changes are expected in 2017, when a major revision of the UNODC questionnaire is planned in order to adapt further to the new ICCS and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. A meeting of UN-CTS Focal Points to discuss the future developments is planned at the UNODC on 9-11 May Eurostat and a number of EU Member States will be represented at the meeting. In the discussion that followed, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) offered to send to Eurostat a recent FRA opinion in relation to third country nationals and migrant smuggling. Some countries requested that any changes to the definitions in the UNODC questionnaire should be highlighted in the accompanying guidance notes Booklet on using the ICCS in the EU (Doc. CR/WG2016/05) Stephen Clarke described plans to produce a booklet to raise awareness of the ICCS among data users and data providers in the EU, which focuses on how the ICCS should be used in the context of crimes where there is an interest at the EU level. Members of the Working Group were invited to comment on the proposed content of the booklet and to note that they will be consulted on the translation of the ICCS in all official EU languages which will be included in the booklet. There were no specific comments in the meeting and Eurostat asked for any comments to be submitted in writing before 31 March ICCS Technical Advisory Group Michael Jandl informed the Working Group that a Technical Advisory Group has been established by the UNODC to discuss the implementation and further development of the ICCS. The first meeting of the Technical Advisory Group will take place on May 2016 and will focus on the UNODC implementation manual and the mapping of crimes into the ICCS. Mr Jandl said that the UNODC was interested in testing the mapping of crimes in each of the 11 main sections of the ICCS and was seeking to hire a contractor to support the mapping process. He invited countries to volunteer to work on mapping a particular ICCS section and the results of the exercise will be included in volume 1 of the ICCS implementation manual in Eurostat asked countries to indicate their interest in taking part in the mapping exercise in writing by 31 March

5 6. Development of a survey on gender-based violence (Doc. CR/WG2016/02) Lucie Davoine from DG JUST (Gender Equality Unit) updated the Working Group on international commitments on gender-based violence and on the European Commission s four-fold approach to combatting gender-based violence, which involves relevant legislation, policies, funding and data collection. Regarding data collection in particular, there have been repeated calls from the Council and the European Parliament for data on gender-based violence. In addition, the Istanbul Convention introduces obligations to conduct a regular population-based survey on violence against women and domestic violence. In order to support the development of comparable statistics in this field, the European Commission proposes to develop an EU-wide survey on the prevalence of gender-based violence within the European Statistical System. Stephen Clarke informed the Working Group that the development work will be taken forward by a Task Force involving Member States and experts from a range of relevant organisations and disciplines. The European Institute for Gender Equality and FRA will be represented in the Task Force, which will start its work later in In the discussion that followed, Eurostat confirmed that no regulation is currently planned for this survey and that funding to support the development will be available. Some delegates were concerned about data comparability between countries with different attitudes to sexual violence. Eurostat said that this was an issue which the Task Force would need to address. A number of countries have some experience of collecting survey data on gender-based violence, although there was some reluctance to consider introducing a new survey methodology when a specific survey is already in place. It was suggested that the Task Force should include experts from health services and other organisations such as the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (HEUNI) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). Four countries, France, The Netherlands, Portugal and Italy, expressed interest in taking part in the Task Force. In conclusion, the Working Group agreed to the creation of the Task Force in the context of the Istanbul Convention and the importance of comparable survey methodologies in this field. Members of the Working Group who have any further comments on the mandate of the Task Force, or who wish to take part in the Task Force, were invited to contact Eurostat before 31 March Related Agency activities 7.1 EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (Room document) Joanna Goodey from FRA presented the activities of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights and circulated a room document which summarised selected projects in the justice field in the period Ms Goodey informed the Working Group that FRA plans to conduct its survey on violence against women in 10 non-eu Member States and offered to keep the Working Group informed about other relevant FRA activities. 4

6 7.2 European Institute on Gender Equality (EIGE) (Doc. CR/WG2016/07) Jurgita Pečiūrienė from EIGE described the importance of having statistics disaggregated by gender, which help to raise awareness of the role of gender in society and provide indicators of gender equality for monitoring gender-sensitive policies. Ms Pečiūrienė presented recent developments in EIGE s Gender Statistics database and EIGE s collection of data on the prevalence of gender-based violence data from administrative sources. Current work includes a study on the terminology and indicators for data collection on rape, femicide and intimate partner violence, and a new study on improving data collection in the judiciary and police sectors. 7.3 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) (Doc. CR/WG2016/03) André Noor from the EMCDDA described the data reporting issues arising from the collection of data on drug law offences, conducted through the EMCDDA s network of national focal points (Reitox). Mr Noor identified three areas where further work is required to ensure consistency with Eurostat practice: some countries provided counts based on number of offenders instead of number of offences; some countries provided data relating to a later stage of the criminal justice system (e.g. the court stage instead of the police-recording stage); and some countries included administrative drug law offences in their responses. Stephen Clarke emphasized that Eurostat s aim is to use the EMCDDA as its source for data on drug law offences and that it is important to be able to reconcile the current Eurostat data with the EMCDDA data. In the discussion, Sweden identified a misclassification in the data provided to the EMCDDA (data under code 09 should be under code 01). Eurostat and the EMCDDA agreed to continue to work together to improve the data on drug law offences. A further parallel run will take place in 2016 and guidance to data providers will be extended. In particular, the issue will be discussed at the next EMCDDA focal point meeting in June Members of the Working Group were invited to examine the differences between the data reported to the EMCDDA and to Eurostat and to send an explanation for the differences to Eurostat by 31 March European Statistical Training Programme (Doc. CR/WG2016/06) Stephen Clarke informed the Working Group that the proposal for a training event on the annual Eurostat-UNODC data collection, which was first discussed by the Working Group in 2015, has been taken forward. A training event Compiling Official Statistics on Crime and Criminal Justice is in the Eurostat Statistical Training Programme for 2016 and is scheduled to take place on June. Mr Clarke described the aim, content and format of the course, which will include sessions on the role of the national contact point and mapping offences to the ICCS. These are two areas where experts from National Statistical Institutes or other national authorities could contribute as trainers, as some countries have developed good practices in these areas. Mr Clarke invited countries who would be willing to lead a short session on mapping offences or on the role of the national contact point, to inform Eurostat by 31 March

7 Mr Mercy emphasized that the coordination role of the National Statistical Institute is a key component in the collection of statistics on crime, and in the collection of European statistics in general. Regulation (EC) 223/2009 on European statistics was amended in 2015 and Article 5 states that the National Statistical Institute is responsible for coordinating statistical activities at a national level. In the light of this, Eurostat will write to each National Statistical Institute to confirm the national contact point for all matters relating to European statistics on crime and criminal justice. 9. Conclusions The Working Group noted the activities and priorities outlined by DG HOME and DG JUST Revisions to the data and reference metadata for the 2015 data collection should continue to be sent to Eurostat via edamis Eurostat will collect data on third country convicted nationals in June 2016 and supplementary data covering trafficking in human beings and migration smuggling in September 2016 In addition, Eurostat will make a distinction between litigious and non-litigious civil and commercial cases to improve data comparability Countries were asked to indicate by 31 March 2016 their interest in taking part in a UNODC mapping exercise for the ICCS implementation manual The Working Group agreed to the creation of the Task Force on the development of a survey on gender-based violence France, The Netherlands, Portugal and Italy expressed their interest in taking part in the Task Force Further comments on the draft mandate of the Task Force and expressions of interest in taking part in the Task Force were requested by 31 March 2016 Explanations from countries for differences between the Eurostat and the EMCDDA data on drug law offences were requested by 31 March 2016 Eurostat and the EMCDDA will continue to collect data on drug law offences and to work with countries to resolve the differences between the two collections Countries willing to lead a short session on mapping offences to the ICCS or on the role of the national contact point, as part of the ESTP training event, were asked to inform Eurostat by 31 March 2016 Eurostat will write to each National Statistical Institute to confirm the national contact point for crime and criminal justice statistics Eurostat April