1. Legislative crime proofing - Detection and evaluation of loopholes that offer opportunities for organised crime
Prof. Dr. Tom Vander Beken
Tackling organised crime in partnership -
The first European Congress on developing public/private partnerships to reduce the harm of organised crime
Dublin, 21 November 2003

2. Overview
1. What?
2. Why?
3. How?
4. Who?

3. 1. What is legislative crime proofing?
Reducing the opportunities for crime which may be inadvertently created by legislation, products and processes
(Legislative) crime proofing
“Testing legislative proposals as regards the crime opportunities they might create.” (Commission 2000 and 2002)
“The scanning of loopholes and crime facilitating opportunities …. applied to the legislation making process” (Commission and Europol 2001)
Product (crime) proofing
No EU-definition (“so-called product proofing”) (draft report on implementation millenniumstrategy, 2003)
“Method to scan the probability that a crime occurs due to the nature of the product” (own tentative definition)

4. 2. Why legislative crime proofing?
Organised crime cannot be tackled by repressive action alone
Preventive strategies should focus on the “task environment” and opportunities for organised crime
Society offers (inadvertently) opportunities economic activity: products, services,…
decision making: rules, legislation

5. 3. How? (in theory) Very few existing experiences or best practices
Max-Planck-Institute comparative study: Falcone Study 1990/140)
New methodology should allow to measure and rank legislative proposals according to their “crime risk”
“Proof” legislation “in context”
crime proofing as a part of vulnerability studies of economic sectors

6. 4. How? (in practice) Two possible levels of proofing:
identification of relevant proposals to proof
analysis (proofing) of the selected proposals
Develop a crime risk assessment matrix that should make use of:
results of existing vulnerability studies of sectors
existing law enforcement data
crime indicators

7. 5. Who?
Crime proofing requires knowledge of the context of the proposal/legislation:
economic sector
crime situation
crime opportunities
Crime proofing cannot be done by legislators alone
Involvement of:
private sector representatives
law enforcement
academics (criminologists, …)

8. 6. Conclusions
Legislative crime proofing as important preventive instrument
Need for a crime risk assessment matrix
Crime proofing requires knowledge of the economic and crime context (private sector, law enforcement and academic involvement)