The problem

Criminals are using legal loopholes to launder money, commit fraud, corrupt officials, and infiltrate businesses and professions. Inconsistencies between national laws, especially company law, help them to hide their activities. This undermines the security of EU citizens and decreases the competitiveness and effectiveness of EU economic systems. Some products, such as weapons and drugs, and technologies, such as mobile phones and email, may also help crime. Despite several attempts to close these loopholes and to prevent the use of electronic products in crime, little has been achieved.

Overview:

MARC aims to develop a crime risk assessment mechanism to guide EU governments in developing ‘crime-proof’ legislation and electronic products.

The project will:

• Review literature and case studies to assess the levels of vulnerability and risks faced, and will develop a mechanism to guide policymakers in framing new laws and regulations to ensure there are no loopholes for criminals to exploit
• Pilot-test this mechanism on EU procurement law and propose improved national statutes
• Test the refined mechanism on laws for electronic products, and develop proposals for incorporating the underlying crime prevention principles in their design

Contribution to policy development:

• MARC will help legislators and policy-makers at EU and Member States levels to generate better policies and regulations by introducing a crime risk assessment component to the legislative process
• It will also provide EU and national policies that call for products to be crime-proof in the same way that they must now be safe to use

Project deliverables

• crime risk assessment mechanism for proofing EU legislation against crime, plus actions to include in EU legislation to prevent crime – June 2005
• final report presenting the legislative crime risk assessment mechanism for proofing EU legislation, to include the results of a pilot study on EU-level public procurement legislation – January 2006
• final crime risk assessment mechanism to measure the risk of theft of electronic products and how to make thief-proof. The final report will recommend how the electronics industry might implement standards of crime proofing in – January 2006

Dissemination

• interim reports on sector risk assessments – October 2004
• interim report on application of mechanism to electronic products – May 2005
• final activity and management report – February 2007
• two-day EU conference on Proofing Electronic Products against Crime – February 2006

Technical information

Project acronym: MARC
Project’s official full title: Developing Mechanisms for Assessing the Risk of Crime due to legislation and products in order to proof them against crime at EU level
Research priority: 2.6. Improved means to anticipate crime trends and causes, and to assess the effectiveness of crime prevention policies; assessment of new challenges related to illicit drug use
Specific webpage: http://marc.unicatt.it/index.html
Proposal/contract no: 502395
Start date: 1 May 2005
Kick off meeting: February 2004
Completion date: 30 May 2006
European Commission scientific officer: Angela Liberatore (angela.liberatore@ec.europa.eu)

Coordinator:
Name: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - Department of Sociology
Abbreviated name: UCSC
Address: Largo A. Gemelli, 1 - 20123 Milano
Country: Italy
Tel: +39 02 7234.1
Website: http://www.unicatt.it/

Partners

Name: Cardiff University        
Abbreviated name: UWC
Country: United Kingdom

Name: HEUNI - European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control
Abbreviated name: HEUNI
Country: Finland

Name: Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy, Ghent University
Abbreviated name: Ugent
Country: Belgium

Name: Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, University College of London
Abbreviated name: UCL
Country: United Kingdom

Name: Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law – Department of Criminology, Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science
Abbreviated name: MPG
Country: Germany

Name: National Council for Crime Prevention
Abbreviated name: BRÅ
Country: Sweden

Name: Transcrime, Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime, Università degli Studi di Trento - Università del Sacro Cuore
Abbreviated name: UNITN
Country: Italy

Name: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Abbreviated name: CNRS DR01
Country: France

Name: Intertek Testing Services - Research and Testing Centre
Abbreviated name: ITS
Country: United Kingdom