EURO-JUSTIS

SCIENTIFIC INDICATORS OF CONFIDENCE IN JUSTICE: TOOLS FOR POLICY ASSESSMENT

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'EURO-JUSTIS (Justice Indicators) is a project designed to provide EU institutions and Member States with new indicators for assessing public confidence in justice. Member States are making growing use of social indicators to improve policy and its assessment, but limited progress has been made in criminal justice. Common-sense indicators based on readily available statistics – such as crime trends – have been used extensively. Much less attention has been paid to crucial but hard-to-measure indicators about public confidence in justice. Without such indicators, there is a risk that crime policies may become over-focussed on short-term objectives of crime control, at the expense of equally important longer-term objectives relating to justice. The project is based on the assumption that an effective justice system must assess itself not only against narrow criteria of crime control, but against broader criteria relating to people’s trust in justice and their sense of security. In the long term, public compliance with the law depends on the legitimacy of institutions of justice. Institutions command legitimacy if people recognise that they are fair, just and provide public security. The project will develop and pilot survey-based indicators of public confidence in justice – a term used here to embrace issues relating to fairness, trust and insecurity. It will assemble contextual data for interpreting the indicators – on the assumption that there are close relationships between public perceptions of justice and the substantive quality of justice as reflected in the workings of the justice process. It will develop tools for presenting and interpreting the indicators in ways that are intuitive and accessible. The project will aim not only to develop scientifically credible indicators but also to build some consensus across Member States about the importance of assessing crime policy against criteria of public confidence, making effective dissemination a priority.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

An enterprising EU-sponsored survey is finding out how the justice system in different European countries is perceived. This could be the first step to upgrading the system and harmonising it across Europe.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The justice system is an important product of our values as a society. It has been the backbone of fairness, security and progress in a civilisation. In a spirit of openness and improvement, the EU-funded project Euro-Justis is investigating public confidence in the justice system. It is providing EU institutions and Member States with new indicators for assessing justice.

While Member States are considering social indicators to improve justice policy and its assessment, limited progress has been made in this respect. Generally, indicators based on statistics such as crime trends have been used extensively. However, little attention has been given to crucial but hard-to-measure indicators regarding public trust in justice. Without such indicators, crime policies may focus excessively on crime control while ignoring important longer-term objectives that encourage social cohesion.

To address this challenge, Euro-Justis is conducting surveys of public trust in justice. It is studying data by country to interpret indicators such as socio-economic standing and information about each country's criminal justice system. Euro-Justis will develop tools for presenting and interpreting the indicators in ways that are intuitive and accessible. The project aims to develop scientifically credible indicators and build consensus across Member States about the importance of assessing crime policy for public confidence.

The project team has already identified the need for social indicators of public trust, assessed studies on trust in justice, and gathered existing indicators that have been used effectively. It surveyed criminal justice experts and other stakeholders in seven countries to find out the perceived need for these indicators and completed a review of literature on available indicators. The results, which were published, helped elaborate the project's roadmap for the next steps.

In 2009, Euro-Justis also organised its first international conference in Sofia, Bulgaria. Invitees included the Vera Institute of Justice from the US which is also involved in a similar project.

A very important achievement for the project so far has been successful participation in the fifth round of the European Social Survey (ESS) conducted in about 30 countries. The survey included 50 questions on trust in justice relating largely to perceptions of fairness, effectiveness, trust and legitimacy. This is a highly significant development as it helps refine the indicators further. The survey also builds a large comparative dataset that considers cultural variations in trust in justice and helps test theories for shaping institutional legitimacy. Academic partners in other jurisdictions are being encouraged to undertake similar surveys in their countries: discussions are now in progress with Australia and Japan, as well as with Trinidad and Tobago.

Once the project is completed, Europe will have a much better idea of how the justice system is perceived by the public and what steps can be taken to improve the system.