European sourcebook of crime and criminal justice statistics – 2021

This is the sixth edition of a data collection initiative that started in 1993 under the umbrella of the Council of Europe and has been continued since 2000 by an international group of experts that created the European Sourcebook of Criminal Justice e.V.1 and is also a Working Group of the European Society of Criminology. These experts act as regional coordinators of a network of national correspondents whose contribution has been decisive in collecting and validating data on a variety of subjects from 42 countries.2 This edition of the Sourcebook is composed of six chapters. The first five cover the current main types of national crime and criminal justice statistics – police, prosecution, conviction, prison, and probation statistics – for the years 2011 to 2016, providing detailed analysis for 2015. The sixth chapter covers national victimization surveys, providing rates for the main indicators every five years from 1990 to 2015. As with every new edition of the Sourcebook, the group has tried to improve data quality as well as comparability and, where appropriate, increase the scope of data collection. For example, offence definitions were updated to reflect the lessons learned from previous editions.peer-reviewe

Conflicts, victimisation and justice in the intercultural context: the case of Serbia

Victimology Society of Serbia-VDS is one of the partners in the four years research project Developing alternative understandings of security and justice through restorative justice approaches in intercultural settings within democratic societies – ALTERNATIVE, which is coordinated by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), and funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The overall objective of the ALTERNATIVE project is to provide an alternative and deepened understanding of justice and security based on empirical evidence from four action research settings (Serbia, Austria, Hungary and Northern Ireland) of how to handle conflicts within intercultural contexts in democratic societies. Within the ALTERNATIVE, VDS is implementing a research Fostering victim-oriented dialogue in a multiethnic society, the aim of which is to develop alternative models of resolution of existing and prevention of future conflicts between members of different ethnic groups in Serbia, which may contribute to closing a circle of violence and the increase of overall security of the citizens. During 2013, VDS conducted an empirical research study on interethnic conflicts and the way people have been solving them. The aim was also to see how victims are treated, how security and justice are perceived, and what role restorative justice approaches have in dealing with conflicts and security. The research consisted of both qualitative and quantitative part. The contribution will consist from two parts. In the first part a brief overview of the project ALTERNATIVE will be given. Thereafter, we will focus on the research implemented in Serbia. After a short description of the research methodology, we will present main research findings related to the conflicts that have been evolving since 1990 between members of different ethnic groups in three multi-ethnic communities in Serbia, focusing on the prevalence and characteristics of victimisation and respondents’ notions of justice, i.e. mechanisms suitable to achieve justice in the concrete cases of victimisation they experienced. In the conclusion we will point out that respondents attribute high relevance to both formal and informal restorative approaches, suggesting the need of citizens in general, and victims in particular to actively participate in the process of conflict transformation and prevention of further victimisations.status: publishe