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

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 Penales 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.