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Are juvenile criminal justice statistics comparable across countries? A study of the data available in 45 European nations

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Abstract

This article analyses the data on minors included in the police, prosecution, conviction, prison and probation statistics of 45 European nations in 2010, which were collected in the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics. The main conclusions of the analysis are that comprehensive juvenile justice statistics are seldom available and that the existing data are hardly comparable across countries. The article identifies the main reasons that hamper the comparability: The definition of minors is not harmonized, the rules applied for the construction of the statistics are not the same, and there are differences in the legal procedures foreseen for minors as well as on the type of sanctions that can be imposed to them. As a consequence, European juvenile justice statistics do not provide valid comparable information on the extent of juvenile delinquency, and their reliability as indicators of the social reaction to it is doubtful.

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Notes

  1. For details, see Jehle (2013) and the Introduction to this special issue. All the editions of the European Sourcebook as well as the original data are available at www.unil.ch/europeansourcebook.

  2. Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, TFYR of Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine and the three nations of the United Kingdom (England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland). The European Sourcebook also includes data from Kosovo (UN/R 1244/99).

  3. The minimum age for inclusion in prosecution and conviction statistics should coincide with the age of criminal responsibility, because no one can be prosecuted and convicted before that age. The minimum age for inclusion in prison statistics should coincide with the minimum age for the application of custodial sanctions and measures, because no one can be deprived of freedom before that age. The European Sourcebook includes information on the minimum age for inclusion in conviction statistics as well as on the inclusion or exclusion of minors in prison statistics (Aebi et al. 2014, p. 142 and 294). The information regarding prison statistics is presented in the next paragraph, while the one regarding conviction statistics shows some inconsistencies and therefore is not presented in Table 1.

  4. Spain does not include minors because they are not under the responsibility of the Prison Administration. Poland only includes minors convicted for the most serious offences. Portugal only includes minors aged 16 to 18 in the stock statistics and minors aged 16 to 20 in the flow statistics. Turkey only includes minors placed in prisons for adults (Aebi et al. 2014, p. 294).

  5. See: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/law-and-rights/legal-system-s/taking-legal-action-s/young-people-and-the-law-s/. Last accessed on 18 July 2015

  6. The information on Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland does not come from the European Sourcebook or the Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics, but from Krajewski (2014), Dünkel (2010); Janson (2004) and the Swiss criminal code (art. 61) respectively.

  7. In prison statistics, the flow refers to the number of minors admitted in penal institutions during a whole year and the stock refers to the number of minors deprived of freedom on a given day (Aebi and Delgrande 2014). By extension, the terms flow and stock are used here to describe the number of minors and cases included in all the types of criminal statistics included in the European Sourcebook. A more valid measure of the flow of cases throughout the criminal justice system could be obtained by following each individual case through each stage of the system. Such detailed indicator is however seldom available in European countries (Harrendorf, Jehle, & Smit, 2014).

  8. In order to simplify the reading, in Table 2 we use the general terms prisons and prisoners to refer respectively to closed institutions for minors and to minors deprived of freedom.

  9. The concept of attrition refers to the filtering out of cases throughout the different stages of the criminal justice system (Harrendorf et al. 2014; Jehle 2012) and has been the object of a specific study conducted by the European Sourcebook Group (Heiskanen et al. 2014).

  10. Numerical items refer to those requiring an answer in the form of a figure reflecting the quantity of cases or persons included.

  11. In that perspective, seven countries report that they have introduced changes in police data recording methods between 2007 and 2011 (Aebi et al. 2014: 103).

  12. Sweden, for example, systematically presents the highest rate of rapes registered by the police in the whole Europe (Aebi et al. 2014, p. 42). That rate is explained by the interation of statistical, legal and substantive factors (von Hofer 2000). Indeed, according to victimization surveys, Sweden does not show a high prevalence of sexual assaults (van Dijk 2007, p. 85).

  13. In Austria, for example, restorative justice and the use of alternative measures has inspired the criminal policy applied to minors since the 1990s (Höpfel 2004). According to the analysis of Bruckmüller and Schumann (2015), in 2010, roughly 60% of the proceedings against juveniles were dismissed, 17% led to a diversion measure and 21% to an indictment. From 2002 to 2012, the number of juvenile offences recorded by the police—who, since 2008, are obliged to register all alleged offences committed by minors—increased by 23% while the number of convictions remained relatively stable, which seems to reflect the large use of diversion measures (Bruckmüller and Schumann 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Criminal Sciences, University of Lausanne, ESC-BCH-Sorge, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Claudia Campistol & Marcelo F. Aebi

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  1. Claudia Campistol
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  2. Marcelo F. Aebi
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Correspondence to Marcelo F. Aebi.

Appendix

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Table 2 Minors in conflict with the law in 2010 in 40 European countries (absolute numbers, rates and ratios)
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Campistol, C., Aebi, M.F. Are juvenile criminal justice statistics comparable across countries? A study of the data available in 45 European nations. Eur J Crim Policy Res 24, 55–78 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-017-9345-2

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