Press Release: The Commission puts forward a 5 year action plan and sets up an expert group to remedy the lack of EU statistics on crime and criminal justice

The European Commission has adopted a Communication on "Developing a comprehensive and coherent EU strategy to measure crime and criminal justice", 8 August 2006. The Communication contains an EU action plan for the development of EU statistics on crime and criminal justice over the period 2006-2010. The action plan outlines the stepwise approach, in coordination with Member States and other concerned entities, towards the objective of accessible high quality quantitative information to be used for prioritising action to fight crime, benchmarking performance and evaluating implemented measures. The Commission has also decided to set up a group of experts to support the implementation of the action plan, specifically on the Justice, Freedom and Security policy needs for data on crime and criminal justice.