Bosnia & Herzegovina Statistical Training Prosecution / Courts Session 4, November 22nd Overview of the Criminal Justice System and Statistics – Recording and Counting rules With funding from the European Union DEVELOPMENT OF MONITORING INSTRUMENTS FOR JUDICIAL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT INSTITUTIONS IN THE WESTERN BALKANS Phase three – Training

Recording and counting rules One of the most confusing aspects of Criminal Justice Statistics is the changing counting unit. Roughly spoken from victim to crime to offender to case. One of the complications is that labeling is sometimes needed at another level of counting (e.g. crime type at the case level) Another complication is one of communication: between languages, but also between agencies within one country

Contents 1.Counting unit /counting moment 2.Principal Offence rule 3.Multiple sanctions / offences / suspects

Recording and counting rules For each item I will give a general introduction and I will reflect on how it is dealt with in the Netherlands, followed by a roundtable discussion establishing the situation in BiH I will discuss the whole flow through the Justice System, but concentrating on Prosecution and Courts The aim of this session is to describe in detail the recording and counting rules in BiH and to identify possible shortcomings

Counting unit There is a large number of different types of potential counting units: examples are –Victim, Person, Household, Crime, Criminal act, Offence, –Offender, Case, File, Dossier, Verdict, Sentence, Sanction, … The exact (legal) definition is often not clear, which makes it hard to translate Some countries do not define their units in their criminal procedure codes (England) some do.

Counting unit Victim Surveys The counting unit here is often (as in the British Crime Survey) a person However this is usually restricted to persons above a certain age (18+ with extension to 16+ from 2010) But sometimes the unit is a household And for business surveys the unit is a company The reporting unit can be the number of victimizations This would become relevant if BiH introduced a victimization survey

Counting unit Police recording Here it starts getting more complicated. Usually the unit is the crime, eg: “a set of actions, linked together in time and place, committed by one or more persons at the expense of zero or more persons, where these actions are considered criminal by law” This would be a good description of the Dutch and the English systems: a crime is recorded with possibly several victims and several offenders. And more offences, provided these are part of the same crime. Would this be a good description of the counting unit for recorded crimes in Bosnia? What would be the local terms and is crime in your view the logical translation in English for the whole and offence for the parts?

Counting unit Suspected Offenders This seems easy, the counting unit is the person. Some questions remain, such as: When is a person considered a suspected offender? (the Netherlands: when the person is formally interrogated) Are unique persons counted? (Netherlands and England : no – if an offender is caught for two separate offences at different times he is counted twice.) Again: what would the answer be in Bosnia & Herzegovina?

Counting unit Police output / Prosecution input Statistically, these could be the same. In the Netherlands and England police output is not seen as a separate statistic. (But of course, the input of the Prosecution could come from other agencies as well, such as the tax authorities) The counting unit is called a zaak/case in the Netherlands/England. But:

Prosecution / Court cases (the Netherlands) The basic unit for statistical purposes is the case (Dutch: zaak). A case has always exactly one offender. A sentencing decision by the court is always made on the level of the case and can consist of many different sanctions (Dutch: ‘straf’) However, a case can have more than one crime committed by this offender (cases can be combined into one case). A decision by the PPS can be on the level of the crime.

Prosecution / Court cases (the Netherlands) And this can be done in two ways: 1.The crime itself consists of more than one offence (e.g. robbery in combination with illegal arms possession) 2.The crime has been given an alternative lable by the PPS: (e.g. manslaughter or assault leading to death) The guilty/not guilty court verdict is on this level (the offence) Note The offence can exist of more than one article in the Criminal Code

Prosecution / Court cases (Kosovo) How is this organized in the criminal Statistics of Bosnia & Herzegovina: Offenders, cases, verdicts, offences, sanctions? Are these in your view indeed the right English terms? Do the Police, Prosecution and Courts use the same counting units? Do the different entities in BiH use the same counting units? Is all this written down for everyone to know about it? What about changes to these rules: eg when the The Criminal Code changes.is there a mechanism, for letting everybody know about the new units/rules.

Prosecution / Court cases (the Netherlands) Statistically, the Dutch and the English data structure is problematic for two reasons: 1.The number of cases is rather flexible (cases seem to disappear when they are combined). This has an effect on what is considered input/output. Also some cases remain on the file but are not dealt with by the court: also in England, once the court has decided on guilt, then other cases can be asked to be ‘Taken into consideration for sentence’: ie they will not get prosecuted again. –Combining cases by Prosecutor and/or Judge is possible (in the Netherlands and England). In BiH –It is very important how to deal with those in Statistics. What kind of a decision would this be for Bosnia? –Who would take the decision?

Prosecution / Court cases (the Netherlands) The second reason is that: A good deal of information is available on the level of the offence, but needed on the level of the case. This makes the decision what offence level information to use (e.g. to answer the question what sentence was given to which crime type) rather complicated! This leads to the need for two sets of specific rules: –The Principal Offence rule –The Principal Sanction rule

Principal Offence rule If a case consists of more than one offence there are several possibilities when establishing the type of crime: 1.The crime type of the most important offence is taken (and how is most important then defined?) 2.The crime type of the first offence is taken 3.The statistics are not given on the level of the case, but on the level of the offence The principal offence rule says to use 1. What type of solution does BiH have to this situation?

Examples of principal offence rule (England) There is no right or wrong about the detail of the principal offence rules. But two things are important: –Those recording the data should have ready access to the rules –Those reading the published data should also have access to the rules Most countries publish their rules in detail and have ways of amending these: We will have a look at some examples from England.

Principal Sanction rule If more than one sanction is imposed on an offender there are several possibilities when establishing the type of sanction for the crime: 1.The most severe sanction is taken 2. The first sanction is taken 3. All sanctions are given The principal sanction rule says to use 1. In England the ‘most severe’ is defined as the offence which has the highest maximum sentence in law. What would the solution be in BiH? How is this known to everybody? What happens if the situation changes?

Suggestion An exact description / definition of all entities ( case, offender, offence) in the CJS and their relation to each other is vital. So is a description of the flow through the system of each entity There are useful tools – mainly used in IT - to model these aspects. For example class diagrams and state diagrams in UML (Unified Modelling Language) It would be very useful (and necessary when building computer systems for your statistics) to do this together with IT experts.