Ex post evaluation report on the Criminal Justice Programme (2007-2013)

The Criminal Justice Programme (JPEN) was established under Council Decision No 2007/126/JHA of 12 February 2007 as part of the ‘Fundamental Rights and Justice’ General Programme. The programme was implemented for seven years from 2007-2013. It is a continuation of the framework programme on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (AGIS) (2003-2007).

JPEN addressed one of the four objectives of the Programme on Fundamental Rights and Justice, i.e. the need to promote judicial cooperation and to create a genuine area of justice in criminal matters in accordance with the principles of mutual recognition. It was conceived also in order to establish a computerised system of exchange of information of criminal data.

This final evaluation of JPEN is based on the following:
- an extensive review of the available documentation for 284 action grants and 50 operating grants funded by the 2007-2013 Criminal Justice programme 2007-2013;
- a review of programme documentation, such as the founding decision, annual work programmes and call for proposals for both grants and public procurement contracts;
- a review of EU policy documents, founding decisions of related EU programmes, etc.;
- a quantitative analysis of 334 JPEN projects (action grants and operating grants);
- an analysis of 97 responses to the online survey from grant beneficiaries;
- the write-ups of 33 follow-up interviews with coordinators of projects/organisations receiving JPEN 2007-2013 grants who also responded to the online survey;
- interviews with Commission officials involved in the programme.

The ex post evaluation was performed by an independent external evaluator assisted by Commission staff. The report is structured according to the main evaluation criteria and corresponding questions. These include relevance, coherence and complementarity, effectiveness, impact and sustainability, efficiency and scope for simplification, and European added value.