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Implementation of community sanctions and measures across Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century

An empirical analysis focusing on supervision and community service

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Abstract

This study is based on a project aiming at a methodology to collect data on community sanctions and measures (CSM) and on a recent data collection wave by the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics. The study evaluates the implementation of CSM across Europe and focuses on the integration of these sanctions into the criminal justice system; at the same time, it examines data availability and comparability. Since the types of available sanctions and measures and the underlying penal systems differ significantly between countries, our approach went beyond the national level and looked for a comparative European perspective. We extended the boundaries of the Council of Europe (CoE) Annual Penal Statistics [Statistiques Pénales Annuelles du Conseil de l’Europe; or SPACE II project] and collected data on CSM at three different levels: at the prosecution stage (CSM imposed on an offender as a condition for a conditional disposal), at the sentencing level (CSM ordered by the court), and CSM supervised by probation and similar agencies. By analyzing the major forms of supervision and community service, we found data availability, especially at the level of the court and probation agencies, is quite good, and the importance of CSM in the sentencing policy of countries throughout Europe differs. Despite the diversity of legal concepts, a certain degree of convergence can be observed. Based on this, the potential for better criminal justice statistics revealed by this project can be used for improving the European-wide comparability of information in this field.

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Notes

  1. For a list of the main CSM available in Europe, see Aebi and Chopin (2014).

  2. This article is based on the corrected version of the recent ESB edition, which can be found at: unil.ch/europeansourcebook. The corresponding raw data are published on this homepage as well.

  3. For earlier base years that are not covered by the recent ESB data collection, e.g., the 1990s, SPACE II is the only source that can provide detailed comparable figures on these sanctions and measures (Aebi et al. 2015: 584).

  4. In contrast, electronic monitoring, a rather new sanction, is not examined here due to a lack of data (see Aebi et al. 2014: 315 ff.).

  5. A list of all relevant CoE recommendations can be found in Palmowski et al. 2014: 24 f. Its recommendations are not the only sources dealing with legal sanctions and measures that maintain the offender in the community: Two decisions of the Council of the European Union (Council Framework Decision 2009/829/JHA and 2008/947/JHA) and, on the international level, the Tokyo Rules (United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures, General Assembly resolution 45/110 of 14 December 1990) play an important role. This article, however, focuses on the CoE recommendations, as the Council Framework Decisions and the Tokyo Rules take a slightly different approach; for more information see: Palmowski et al. 2014: 25 f.

  6. Examples of CSM are listed in Council of Europe 1999b and 2000.

  7. In view of the current research focus of comparative studies on custodial sanctions, Robinson describes the research field of CSM as “a neglected and undertheorized zone“ (Robinson 2016: 101). “The focus of comparative projects (as in penology more generally) has been the prison: in particular, imprisonment rates and prison conditions, with youth justice systems also having attracted some attention” (Robinson and McNeill 2016: 1).

  8. See Aebi et al. 2015: 576 f. for an overview of other studies on net-widening effects of CSM in Europe.

  9. More information on the derivation of this term and the development of the concept can be found in Aebi et al. 2015: 576 f.

  10. For data on different types of disposals by the prosecuting authorities in 2010, see Aebi et al. 2014: 122 ff.

  11. Registered as European Sourcebook of Criminal Justice e.V., registered association according to German law (eingetragener Verein).

  12. Funded under the ISEC program (HOME/2010/ISEC/FP/CI/4000001420). Detailed information on this project can be found in: Heiskanen et al. 2014 and Palmowski et al. 2014.

  13. That is the above-cited broad definition of CSM given by the Probation Rules (CM/Rec (2010)1).

  14. These data were not only collected for the stock on 31 December 2010 but also for flow data regarding input and output of cases in 2010 (Aebi et al. 2014: 299 ff.).

  15. These agencies are closely related to the topic of CSM, because the enforcement and supervision of these measures is part of their tasks. More information on the organization and tasks of probation agencies can be found in Palmowski et al. 2014: 37 ff. and Aebi et al. 2014: 324 ff.

  16. For general information on the ESB data validation process, see: Aebi et al. 2014: 18 f.

  17. Data availability for minors is generally not as good as for adults, which is also true for CSM-related questions. This is why the ESB reports data for the total population (minors and adults) and for minors in separate tables. In this way, countries that cannot provide figures for minors can at least give data for the total; Palmowski et al. 2014: 36.

  18. The same clustering has already been applied by Gruszczynzka and Heiskanen (2012).

  19. As mentioned above, microstates were not covered by the ESB data collection; Heiskanen et al. 2014: 20.

  20. The figures for the UK are presented in the ESB as three different countries because the legal systems in England & Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland differ widely; Palmowski et al. 2014: 32 f.

  21. The term input is defined as “the number of persons entering supervision during one year” and the number of persons starting community service during one year” (Palmowski et al. 2014: 93, 102).

  22. This refers to the population of all countries that were not only able to provide input figures for the total of supervision (resp. community service), but also for at least one of the categories describing different forms of this measure (e.g., supervision before a final sentence).

  23. See also Smit et al. 2012: 62, who calculated weighted means (on the basis of the population) for measuring trends in sanctioning in four European regions (north/west, south, central, and eastern Europe.

  24. We also tested whether results differ when means from countries rates were calculated; see footnote 0.

  25. A question on the length of probation was tested in a trial questionnaire of the DECODEUR project but had to be omitted due to lack of data.

  26. The term stock is defined as “the number of persons supervised by the probation agencies at a given date (31 December)” and “the number of persons under community service at a given date (31 December)” (Palmowski et al. 2014: 93, 102).

  27. This refers to all countries that were not only able to give stock and input data for the total of supervision (resp. community service), but also for at least one of the categories (e.g., supervision before a final sentence).

  28. The “other” category may refer to very different situations, e.g., death of the client or inclusion of the original sentence in a new sentence (as is possible according to German juvenile criminal law). It was, however, not feasible to collect these data differentiated by certain types of supervision/community service (because very few information was available for such an in-depth question) but only for the total of supervision/community service; Palmowski et al. 2014: 30.

  29. All countries that were not only able to give output data for the total of supervision (resp. community service), but also for at least one reason for ending (e.g., completion).

  30. See “Statistical methods”. A similar trend concerning the different forms of supervision and community service can also be observed when calculating a mean of countries’ rates instead of calculating group rates.

  31. Rate for EU-15/EFTA countries in this category: 100 instead of 53 per 100,000 population in Fig. 2.

  32. Rate for EU-15/EFTA countries in this category: 54 instead of 29 per 100,000 population in Fig. 2 and for EU2004+ countries: 148 instead of 114 per 100,000 population in Fig. 2.

  33. This method is not applied in the first place, because we wanted to include as many countries as possible in the analysis.

  34. When referring only to countries that provided data for both supervision and community service (see above), the differences between the EU-15/EFTA states and the EU2004+ group are a bit higher in the category “supervision in connection with the execution of a prison sentence outside prison,” but all other results are similar to those in Figs. 4 and 5.

  35. For “community service as a condition for conditional release,” no ratio could be calculated, because no country provided figures for this category.

  36. In some cases, data were not provided for all categories; other countries provided all categories, but figures do not add up to 100%.

  37. In The Netherlands and in Switzerland, these figures do not cover community service for minors (see above, Table 2).

  38. Three countries classified as other were not presented separately in the graphs, but only included in the totals (referring to all countries).

  39. This form of calculation is, of course, appropriate as well (see above), and it leads to similar differences between the clusters used.

  40. This effect can even be observed when calculations only include countries that provided data on the reasons for ending both supervision and community service.

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  1. Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 6, 37073, Göttingen, Germany

    Jörg-Martin Jehle & Nina Palmowski

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Jehle, JM., Palmowski, N. Implementation of community sanctions and measures across Europe at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Eur J Crim Policy Res 24, 79–98 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-017-9348-z

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