Presidential address: European Criminology needs a European victimisation survey

The European Society of Criminology (ESC) is now a consolidated and exciting project. The annual conferences, with an increasing number of participants, and the European Journal of Criminology, are probably its most visible facets. 2024 brings a new stimulating achievement: the ESC Summer School. However, this project advances while the European criminological community still faces a significant challenge: the need for a pan-European crime victimisation survey that provides researchers with baseline data to study crime trends across the continent and to identify differences between countries and geographical and political areas. As Catrien Bijleveld reminded us one year ago (2023), this is a significant gap regarding the availability of European data for criminological research.

It is not the first time I argued that filling this gap must be a priority for the ESC. But it is worth remembering that this is, first of all, an obligation of the institutions. The Recommendation CM 2023/2 of the Committee of Ministers to the Member States on rights, services, and support for victims of crime, mandates States to “promote, support and, to the extent possible, fund or facilitate fund-raising for victimological research, including comparative research by researchers from within or outside their territory” (art. 25). This regulation goes further and includes more concrete recommendations. Art. 25-2 explicitly refers to certain areas of research: criminal victimisation and its impact on victims; prevalence and risks of criminal victimisation including factors affecting risk; the effectiveness of legislative and other measures for the support, compensation and protection of victims of crime; and the effectiveness of available interventions by criminal justice authorities, victim services and restorative justice programmes. The Council of Europe also recommends public and private agencies cooperate in sharing expertise, nationally and internationally (art. 25-4). These provisions require a commitment from national authorities and we, as researchers, should do our part to make things happen.

After the Survey published in 2005 (The Burden of Crime, 2005), a further initiative was carried out by a consortium formed by the University of Tilburg and the University of Lausanne, with Jan Van Dijk, Marcelo Aebi, John van Kesteren, and Antonia Linde as active members. Several interim reports were discussed by the Eurostat Working Group on Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, the Task Force on Victimisation Surveys, and the DG JLS Expert Group on the Policy Needs of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics. The final report (2010) assessed the current situation regarding the collection of survey data on victimisation in Europe, described the results of pilot surveys in 17 countries undertaken to develop a victimisation module for Member States, produced a suitable questionnaire for a survey, and an overall review of the options for a final victimisation study in the EU.

These precedents, together with experiences from national and local surveys in various European States, regions or cities, and the UN Manual on victimisation surveys (2010) should assist the tasks of an international team of experts, with the necessary support and funding by institutions in various countries. As it is well known, the contributions of a victimisation survey go beyond the interests of victimological research related to understanding the factors associated with victimisation and its effects. An international standardised survey provides valuable information to compare crime data without the obstacles derived from divergent legal rules, criminal justice practices and national statistics. It also helps researchers to find out crime trends at the European level and to make recommendations to Member States, based on a better comprehension of the local peculiarities. 

In addition, a victimisation survey is also an opportunity to collect information on aspects that are increasingly relevant for the policies of national and supranational institutions: those related to victims' rights. It is paradoxical that since 2005 no victimisation survey has been conducted at the European level, while in this nearly twenty-year period, several recommendations from the Council of Europe and various European Union Directives have been approved, setting higher standards regarding victims' rights. Among these, a highlight of the mentioned Recommendation CM 2/2023 and the Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime. It is worth mentioning the exceptions to the lack of initiatives, namely the 2021 survey carried out by the FRA (EU Agency for Fundamental Rights) within the scope of EU countries (despite being constrained by certain shortcomings), and sectorial surveys regarding certain forms of victimisation

The survey required in the current context should be conceived based on a vocation for continuity and needs to be robust enough to have a representative sample of the population from a significant number of countries. It should also obtain a sufficiently large subsample of victimised individuals. This would allow researchers not only to get to know the reporting rate, but also relevant aspects regarding how their rights have been fulfilled: whether victims have accessed specialised support services, the victims’ satisfaction with the attention received, and how various agents of the criminal justice system (primarily police and courts) have met their obligations to provide information and ensure the victims’ participation in the criminal process, as well as protection against secondary victimisation.

Another paradox lies in the fact that the absence of a European victimisation survey has persisted during the growth of the ESC, especially considering that issues related to victims have had an increasing presence in the research carried out in the criminological community, as shown by Vander Bekken’s study (2021). This has been confirmed with data from the abstracts presented in the ESC Conferences until 2023 through a recent study I will have the opportunity to present at the inaugural session of the next ESC Annual Conference, in Bucharest.

I look forward to discussing these issues with colleagues from many countries in Bucharest. Let us do it with the inspiration provided by the memory of Benjamin Mendelsohn's work. For months, a group of people have been working on translating part of his work to English, bringing valuable pieces of his legacy to our Conference and I am pleased that these efforts will soon be rewarded by the applause of the entire criminological community.

References

Bijleveld, C. (2023). European Criminology needs European data: The case for a pan-European crime and victimization survey. European Journal of Criminology, 20(3): 785-791.

FRA (2021). Crime, safety and victims’ rights. Available here

UN Office for Drugs and Crime & UN Economic Commission for Europe (2010). Manual on Victimization Surveys. Geneve.

Vander Bekken (2021). Two decades of European criminology: Exploring the conferences of the European Society of Criminology through topic modelling”, European Journal of Criminology, 18(4): 463-483.

van Dijk, J. J. M., Manchin, R., van Kesteren, J. N., & Hideg, G. (2007). The burden of crime in the EU: A comparative analysis of the European Survey of Crime and Safety (EU ICS 2005). Gallup Europe. Available here