DS Crime > Methodology > EN > Revamp

Since 2014, the Eurostat crime data collection is implemented jointly with the United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice implemented by the UN Office on Drug and Crime (UNDOC). 

The national authorities which provide the data are requested to adhere to standard definitions when calculating the figures and to provide details for any divergences.

Data sources

Data are collected from the following different sources:

  • police: data of offences, victims, and suspects
  • prosecution service: data of prosecuted persons
  • courts: data of convicted and acquitted persons, number of legal cases processed in first instance (civil, criminal, administrative and other under national law)
  • prison departments: data of prisoners and capacity of prisons
  • all departments: data on personnel.

Classification of criminal acts

The criminal acts are counted by crime type. These types are defined according to a common standard, the International classification of crime for statistical purposes (ICCS). This classification groups all types of crimes for statistical rather than for legal purposes.

The ICCS provides a framework for the systematic production and comparison of statistical data across different criminal justice institutions and jurisdictions. It is based on 3 main pillars:

  • mutual exclusivity, an offence can be classified into one and only one category with no overlaps
  • exhaustiveness, all the possible crimes are covered by the classification
  • hierarchical structure with 4 levels of details

Countries are invited to map their national criminal codes with the ICCS to produce comprehensive data.

Counting rules

In order to ensure comparability of data during the production process, countries have to apply proper rules for the counting of offences and persons.

The rules for counting offences are:

  • all the offences in a crime event should be counted
  • multiple offences of the same type should be counted as more than one
  • offences committed by more than one person should be counted as one offence.

The rules for counting ‘totals’ for persons are:

  • persons suspected/prosecuted/convicted/held for multiple (series of) offences of the same type should be counted as one person
  • persons suspected/prosecuted/convicted/held more than once (on separate occasions) in one year should be counted as one person
  • when providing the number of persons in reference to an offence, it is recommended that each person is counted separately in reference to each offence and crime occurrence.

As countries record information primarily for their own administrative purposes, the data and methods they use may vary. For these reasons, the basic data and how it is collected is different in each country. However, compliance with ICCS definitions and with counting rules can be found in the relevant metadata for each country.