Improving data quality Ole Villund Eurostat The 2018 Working Group Meeting Statistics on Crime and Criminal Justice
"Regular crime statistics" The yearly UN-CTS / Eurostat crime data request Published tables on the Eurobase website Any new tables from the same data source
Quality criteria for statistical output: Relevance Accuracy Timeliness Punctuality Accessibility Clarity Comparability Coherence Quality criteria for statistical output:
Input: crime data Crime definitions, regulations, law enforcement, and justice systems vary between countries. Crime data and statistics are produced by several different authorities in each country. Some consequences: There are many potential sources of quality problems. In practice, few of them are easy to change. Changes happen for different reasons than statistical.
Proposed quality targets for the "Regular crime statistics": Complete Figures for all categories are available for all countries and all years Comparable Each category means the same across all countries and all years
Why? How? Making overviews Comparing countries Studying trends Making all the data Sending all the figures Using the same classification
Incomplete data 1 + 2 + ? = ?? Incomparable data 1a + 2b + 3c = ??
example 1: Police-recorded crimes nearly complete
example 2: Homicide victims by relationship to offender about half of the data is missing
What needs to be done, where? Develop production of new data? Share data that are already produced? Process basic data into statistical data? Send statistical data that are ready?
Classifications Classification of crimes Using the ICCS Classification of people Suspected, prosecuted, convicted, imprisoned. Victims: crime, age, gender, relationship. Personnel: police, prosecution, courts, prisons. Classification of cases Criminal, civil, administrative.
Help with the ICCS UNODC publication manual web-forum Eurostat guidelines advice grants
Eurostat grants Purpose Support for improving crime statistics Contact Eurostat F4 Total amount € 100 000 Opening May 2018 Submission June 2018 Evaluation July 2018 Start of action September 2018
Any questions? Please send questions and feedback about ongoing data collections to: ESTAT-CRIME-DATA@ec.europa.eu Everything else to: ESTAT-CRIME@ec.europa.eu