1. Meeting of the European Directors of Social Statistics
Developing a comprehensive and coherent EU strategy to measure crime and criminal justice Progress report on the EU Action Plan
Agenda point 4.3:
24-25 September 2009
Meeting of the European Directors of Social Statistics

2. The Action Plan
Commission Communication 2006: defines activities & milestones for developing information on crime and criminal justice
DG Justice Freedom and Security (JLS) responsible for implementation, with tasks for Eurostat
Work under Theme 1.10 of the Statistical Work Programme
Review of actions so far ongoing – to be presented to the Council at the end of 2009
Action Plan to expire end of 2010, so a follow-up strategy needed
24-25 September 2009

3. Collaboration with statistical authorities
Network of national contact points initially nominated by statistical authorities:half are in the statistical offices; remainder in other government departments (Ministries of Justice, Interior, etc.)
CIRCA site on Crime Statistics contains all background material, meeting documents, etc.
Annual Working Group meetings held in 2007, 2008, 2009
Task Force meetings have also been organised on specific topics :
Victimisation (2007 and 2009)
Money-laundering (2008)
24-25 September 2009

4. Collection and publication of data
Annual figures to Eurostat on police-reported crime, numbers of prisoners and numbers of police
Data are published on Eurostat website and in Statistics in Focus (3 so far)
Other ‘new crime types’ areas where statistics to be covered (cyber-crime, corruption, fraud, terrorism, sexual exploitation, etc)
Less easy to obtain and definitions are needed
Start made with money-laundering (data collected 2008 and 2009)
24-25 September 2009

5. Victimisation
Task Force 2007 drew up a proposed victimisation survey module for testing
A call for proposals was launched by Eurostat in August 2007
17 grant agreements were signed to translate the proposed module into national languages and test in both laboratory and fieldwork environment
These pilot exercises will end by beginning of 2010
The project is being monitored by a team of international experts
The next task force on victimisation April 2010 will examine the results and propose further steps
24-25 September 2009

6. Future challenges
Development of an internationally-accepted classification of crime types
Improved national systems for collecting data on 'non-traditional' types of crime
A survey instrument to provide internationally-comparable information on victimisation
24-25 September 2009