The first four chapters of the report follow the traditional process of the criminal justice system, beginning with the victims of crime (using ICVS data), and continuing through to the final disposition of the offender (using UNCJS data). The next three chapters deal with increasingly broader concerns, including the resources of criminal justice (using UNCJS data), firearm abuse and regulation using data of the UN International Study on the Regulation of Firearms (UNFRS), and drugs and their control. These are followed by a chapter on crime prevention using mostly research data, and finally a chapter that addresses emerging issues related to transnational crime and its control.
Chapter 1. The Experience of Crime. This chapter reviews the work of the International Crime Victimization Surveys (ICVS), providing a look at crime as it is first experienced by victims, and developing estimates of crimerates based on their reports to interviewers. While the crime rates are the major focus of the chapter, attention is also given to the useful information provided by respondents to the survey concerning their experiences and perceptions of the criminal justice system, with which they may or may not have come into contact as a result of their victimization.
Chapter 2. Police Records of Crime. This chapter moves to the next stage of the criminal justice process - the recording of an event as a crime by the police. The rules that police use to record and classify crimes immediately become important. The United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operation of Criminal Justice Systems (UNCJS) data are used as the basis for this chapter.
Chapter 3. Bringing to Justice. This chapter analyzes the data of the UNCJS concerning offenders and their processing, whether by police, prosecutors of judges. These are records of offenders, in contrast to those of the previous chapter which were police records of events. In addition, as is pointed out in the chapter, the processing, from arrest (or its equivalent) to charging and trial to conviction, is of offenders and not cases. It should be noted that each event may in fact have more than one offender. Furthermore, each case may have more than one crime attached to it and may involve multiple offenders as well. Importantly, the filtering of offenders through the criminal justice system depends on how their cases are constructed and what avenues for processing are available in the particular country=s justice system. This chapter provides a fascinating comparative picture of the filtering that occurs during the justice process.
Chapter 4. Punishment. The final stage in the processing of crime by the criminal justice system is punishment, sometimes called the Adisposition@ stage. This chapter utilizes data primarily from the UNCJS but also draws on other sources where necessary, such as the ICVS and Amnesty International. The data here are also concerned with offenders, most of whom have been convicted of a crime. The types and severity of punishments around the world are examined along with the extent to which punishment either strays or confines itself to acceptable conditions as defined by the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Offenders.
Chapter 5. Resources in Criminal Justice. Drawing on data once again collected by the UNCJS, this chapter assesses the extent to which countries around the world provide resources to run their criminal justice systems. These resources are defined in terms of criminal justice personnel, budgets for operating and capital costs, and the quality of personnel, such as their level of education and their qualifications to perform criminal justice duties. The amount spent by governments on prisoners and prisons is of particular interest, as is the extent to which prisons may or may not be overcrowded in various countries.
Chapter 6. Firearm Abuse and Regulation. This chapter examines a problem that is both very old and very new in criminal justice. It is very old because guns have figured prominently in crime in many countries of the world for many years. It is very new because the concern about gun regulation has been precipitated in recent years by a number of tragic events involving firearms in particular countries as well as their link to international trafficking. Trafficking in firearms is also a key aspect of the new focus on transnational crime that is part of the perception of crime at the international level in the 1990s. Drawing on data from a recent United Nations survey of firearms use and regulation, as well as on data from the UNCJS, this chapter examines the use, abuse and regulation of firearms around the world and assesses their relationship to crimes of violence.
Chapter 7. Drugs and Drug Control. This chapter examines another crime that is both old and new. Abuse of drugs is probably as old as humankind. Its involvement with criminal activity is also not a new phenomenon. However, the international trafficking of drugs has reached, in the last decade, a level of sophistication unheard of in previous times. The globalization of commerce has no doubt contributed to this new sophistication, which of course involves highly skilled members of organized crime. This chapter reviews what is known at the global level of the extent of drug use and trafficking. The international attempts to control drug trafficking and some national solutions to drug crime are described. The complex relationship of drug use and trafficking to traditional crime and its processing through the justice system is of special interest.
Chapter 8. International trends in crime prevention: cost-effective ways to reduce victimization. Lest the picture painted by all chapters so far presented appear too bleak, this chapter provides much reason for optimism. Drawing on information and research from an enormous variety of published sources, this chapter highlights the major studies that have demonstrated success in reducing and/or preventing crime. A wide variety of crime prevention programmes are identified, and the work of international and national organizations in promoting knowledge and know-how in crime prevention is described. Not only are there many instances of successful crime prevention in many different countries, but it is also abundantly clear that, as the cliché goes, Aprevention is better than a cure.@ The chapter demonstrates that a dollar spent on prevention can mean an enormous savings compared to the expense of processing an offender through the criminal justice system.
Chapter 9. Emerging issues: transnational crime and its control. This topic defies the collection of simple statistical data on each transnational crime because these crimes are intrinsically highly complex and often composed of many separate crimes. Thus, the UNCJS and the ICVS are unable to provide much information on this. Instead, this chapter draws upon a wide variety of published research and reports concerning the major types of transnational crime. It first tries to define transnational crime and then proceeds to catalogue the types of transnational crime that exist. It concludes by making reasonable estimates concerning the amount and extent of this new and threatening crime problem.