European Seminar on Costs and the Distribution of Costs of Crime and Disorder and Crime Prevention
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Getting there
Registration
European Cost of Crime Questionnaire
To EUCPN national representatives, substitutes, and contact points
Dear friends and colleagues,
As announced earlier, a European Seminar on Costs and the Distribution of Costs of Crime and Disorder and Crime Prevention will be held in Helsinki. The date of the seminar is 1-2 April, 2004. The programme will begin in the Morning of Thursday the 1st (which means that most people will have to arrive on Wednesday at the latest) and the seminar will close in the Afternoon of Friday the 2nd.
The seminar is organised by the Finnish National Council for Crime Prevention in co-operation with The European Forum for Urban Safety and the Swedish Council for Crime Prevention (BRÅ). The seminar is made possible by monetary support from the AGIS programme of the European Commission. We expect about 60 participants, mostly from the EU member states but also the acceding countries as well as a number of experts from outside Europe.
Programme outline
The programme consists of plenary sessions and workshops. Plenary speakers confirmed so far include such international experts as Pat Mayhew, Mark A. Cohen, and Daniel Sansfaçon. The presentations will look at, for instance, monetary value of crime and the paying party, experiences of counting the cost of crime in several countries and municipalities. The results of an ongoing survey on the cost of crime in the EU member states will be presented in the seminar by Aleksi Grym. Several presentations on cost of crime in local areas will be given either in the plenary or the workshops.
According a preliminary program, the seminar workshops would deal with the following themes: 1.Comparison of Costs in EU countries; 2. Cost or transfer of income: Methods and problems of summing total costs; 3. Insured cost: The role of insurance in distribution of costs of crime 4. Distribution of costs between the state and the municipality in the EU countries; 5. Cities as victims; 6. Cost-benefits of crime prevention.
Participation
The conference is aimed at experts in the fields of crime prevention and social cost assessment as well as criminal-political decision-makers and representatives of cities.
We invite the EUCPN contact points of the member states and acceding countries to send interested and knowledgeable participants to the seminar. Registrations should be sent to us by the 20th of February. The total number of participants is limited to about 60 people – including the presenters. All member states and acceding states are secured at least one place, if they inform us before the deadline. (If some countries plan not to send anyone, we’d also appreciate learning of that as soon as possible). Otherwise participants are accepted based on registrations. If we receive more acceptable registrations than there is room for, we select the participants based on expertise and aiming at a balanced representation from the member states and from the fields of research and national and local government. We’d like the applications to be sent through the national representatives, and should we have to limit acceptance, we will consult the NNPs as appropriate.
Last autumn we sent out through EUCPN a survey questionnaire on costs of crime in the EU member states. To date, the response has been slow. We kindly ask the NRRs to try to expedite responding to this survey, if possible.
Why this seminar?
In some developed countries the cost of crime is equivalent to 5% of the gross national product, according to the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (Montreal), (Daniel Sansfaçon and Brandon Welsh, Crime Prevention Digest II: Comparative Analysis of Successful Community Safety, 1999). For successful crime prevention, a realistic assessment of the costs and their distribution is needed. What is the cost of crime and disorder in European countries? What does crime cost to victims? How is the burden distributed between national and local government, between public bodies and other organisations, between different actors in insurance industry and society at large? What methods are to be recommended in the assessment of the cost of crime and disorder? In assessing the cost-effectiveness of law-enforcement, criminal justice, and crime prevention measures? How to make the distribution of costs fairer and such that it would effectively promote crime prevention?
While there is an extensive literature on the cost of crime in general and of some specific forms of crime, and some literature on the cost-effectiveness of prevention methods, the question of the distribution of costs of crime and its burden to the municipalities has been less explored. In Finland, two studies on the cost of violence were recently carried out, one looking at national level costs and another evaluating the costs at the municipal level in a Finnish city.
The Seminar will: (1) review methods used for assessing the cost of crime and disorder and to discuss possibilities for of their improvement, and (2) collect data on cost assessments of crime and disorder in European countries with a special emphasis on the distribution of the costs. The seminar will look at the distribution of costs between those attributable to expenses and damage caused by crime and disorder and those attributable to the criminal justice system, crime prevention, and similar. It will also examine how the costs are shared and distributed by different actors, such as private and public victims of crime, the insurance industry, the national government, and the local government (municipalities). A particular emphasis will be given to the question of how much crime costs to municipalities.
The seminar is expected to contribute to achievement of the task mentioned in the EUCPN work programme for 2003-2004 (at 5.2) of developing "insight into the costs and benefits of preventing crime in order to promote cost effective approaches to crime prevention at European level". It is foreseen that this will lead to a package of information that will be helpful for the EUCPN and crime prevention bodies in the member states for further analysis in this area. In the end, a realistic and accurate assessment of costs is necessary for successful crime prevention.
Venue and cost
The seminar will be held at Hotel Arthur in the centre of Helsinki. We have also reserved accommodation at his hotel for the participants.
There is no conference fee. The organisers will cover accommodation at Hotel Arthur. We will also invite the participants to meals and refreshments during the seminar. The participants (other than the invited speakers) will have to cover their travel costs, however.
The accommodation paid by the organisers means a single room at Hotel Arthur from Wednesday 31, at the earliest, through Saturday 3 April, at the latest. If you need additional nights or prefer a different room type we’d be happy to try to reserve that for you, but you are responsible to pay the additional costs. If you prefer another hotel, we’d be happy to help, but will not cover the cost. Regarding questions on accommodation, Ms. Katriina Kiviharju will help you (Katriina.Kiviharju@om.fi, +358-9-160-67862).
Further information
Further information will be sent as it becomes available.
Hannu Takala
EUCPN Network National Representative for Finland
Executive Secretary, National Council for Crime Prevention, Finland
