1. Crime & Criminal Justice Data & Metadata collection & dissemination
Cynthia Tavares
Task Force meeting
Luxembourg, 17 – 18 October 2006

2. Data & Metadata Data collection – progress & issues
Database – data & metadata
Dissemination – “Statistics in Focus”

3. Data collection – progress
First presentation of data made to Task Force in March 2006
Data tables sent to all contact persons in mid-March; reply requested by end April
After reminders, all countries (except Hungary) responded by mid-June
Data tables sent to all contact persons again in June for a final check to be carried out
Data tables sent to all contact persons in mid-March
asking them to verify both the data and metadata and to contact other experts in their country, where necessary
Reply requested by end April 2006
In fact, I sent individual s to all contact persons giving them the names & contact details of other experts in their country known to me.
Data tables sent to all contact persons again in June
About half of the countries replied saying no changes.
Hungary replied to this letter.

4. Data collection – issues
Some countries slow in replying
Some contact persons not acting as central points
Some contact points not expert
Data series revised at late stage
Differences between different data sets
Any other problems, corrections etc.?
Issues = Problems
Some countries slow in replying
Greece – I had some queries on the homicide figures
Hungary – changes in Administration – the contact person no longer employed
Romania – Queries on most tables
Some contact persons not acting as central points
France - Most information provided but not the number of police officers as "not their competence“ although Eurostat has stressed that it is contact person's responsibility to collect ALL the figures for their country.
Some contact points not expert
Austria - Questioned big % changes - told that no rules changes etc but I found (from ES) various changes have taken place – electronic data collection, new counting rules.
Data series revised at late stage
Netherlands – total crime and prison figures revised following discussion with several experts in the country
UK: England & Wales – figures now revised to include offences recorded by another police force, the Transport Police
Differences between different data sets – see Handout
UNODC (Wolfgang Rhomberg) have compared the Crime Trends Survey data with Eurostat data for the prison population and homicide. I have added data from the European Sourcebook, the Council of Europe, Centre for Penal Studies and Eurostat’s Causes of Death database. There are some differences that need investigation
Any other problems, corrections etc.?
Can still take into account - Need to know by the end of this week

5. Crime & Criminal Justice database
Information from the Excel spreadsheets to be transferred to Eurostat’s database
Information will be available free of charge
All the data and metadata on database
Eurostat’s database = New Cronos
All the data and metadata (i.e. footnotes) there
Total crime from 1950
Selected offences from 1993
Prison population from 1987
Information on non-EU countries – Albania, Australia, Canada etc
How the information can be accessed
I am going to show some pictures from Eurostat’s Website – easier to look at the handout

6. Crime & Criminal Justice database
Easier to look at your handout now – page 1
Under the theme “Population & Social Conditions
Divided into 6 big tables
Historical data for total crime and prison population in separate tables
Data can be viewed and downloaded in a variety of formats
simple subsets of the tables
using JAVA which allows
browse
select and sort – using your own queries
export to common formats such as HTML, CSV, Excel
HTML
TSV – download entire table as tab separated vales for import into program

7. Crime & Criminal Justice database
Look at your handout – pages 2 to 3
You can select by
year
country
offence
unit - number, average rate, and percentage change

8. Crime & Criminal Justice database
Result gives a simple tables – see pages 4

9. Crime & Criminal Justice database
Look at the handout – page 5
This is a more sophisticated way of accessing the data, running in Java
Able to
Select, sort and filter on all the columns and rows
Export to HTML, Flat files etc
Run and save queries
Customise the layout

10. Crime & Criminal Justice database
See handout – page 6 – the last page - for a view of the results

11. Crime & Criminal Justice database Metadata
Please refer to the documents sent to you earlier.

12. Crime & Criminal Justice database Metadata
Metadata provided according to the international standard “Special Data Dissemination Standard” (SDDS)
Text files on the website
“Base page”, containing general information for a broad category of data
“Summary methodology”, including more specific technical information
Please refer to the documents sent to you earlier
Metadata (i.e. the footnotes – the offence definitions from the Excel Spreadsheet
provided according to the international standard “Special Data Dissemination Standard” (SDDS)
Text files
Base page
Summary methodology
Offence definitions and exceptions are listed in the Annex, as well as the population figures used for calculations.
At the appropriate place, there are links to
HEUNI for country profiles
UN for information from the Crime Trends Surveys
European Sourcebook for information on definitions
Italy (Guisy Muratore) has also provided a page about crime statistics in Italy.
Do you think it would be useful to have a page like this for each country or is it sufficient to refer to HEUNI and European Sourcebook for such information?

13. Dissemination “Statistics in Focus”
Please refer to the documents sent to you earlier.

14. “Statistics in Focus”

15. Statistics in Focus
Short report -12 pages only - 3 languages covering the main points
Highlights on first page, commentary, data and methodological notes
To be published as soon as it is finalised
Short report -12 pages – covering the main points
full information in database, published at the same time
French & German longer so left space
Highlights on first page, commentary, data and methodological notes
I have tried to include a table or a chart on all aspects of the data
To be published as soon as it is finalised
There is a set procedure in Eurostat which takes at least a month
All publications have to be approved by the director
Then translation into French and German – about another month
Help required with proof-reading the French and German – Eurostat translators not yet familiar with terminology
Are national contact persons able to help able to help?

16. Comments / Discussion Data – tables on website Metadata – SDDS fiches
Statistics in Focus
Now invite comments on
Data – tables on website
Metadata – SDDS fiches, is any information missing, should there information by country – like Italy?
Statistics in Focus – does it have all the information you would expect to see? What aspects could we focus on for Press Release?