24 May 1990

13th Plenary Meeting

1990/18. United Nations surveys of criminal justice

The Economic and Social Council,

Convinced of the important role of criminal justice statistics in the informed management of all criminal justice operations and of the need for comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date criminal justice data bases at the national and international levels,

Recognizing the need to continue the work on United Nations criminal justice statistics undertaken by means of periodic surveys of crime trends, the operations of criminal justice systems and crime prevention strategies and to make those surveys as uncomplicated as possible, and recognizing the major contribution that the analysis of such surveys can make to the formulation and development of criminal justice programmes,

Recognizing also that the ongoing work on computerization of crime and justice matters by Member States and the United Nations will enhance the potential of Member States to respond to such surveys,

Bearing in mind Economic and Social Council resolution 1984/48 of 25 May 1984 and resolution 9 adopted by the Seventh United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, in which the Secretary-General was requested to allocate existing resources to allow for the enhancement of efforts to establish and develop national statistical data bases on crime and the operations of the criminal justice systems and to strengthen the work of the United Nations regional institutes in that field,

Believing that future surveys have to be simplified and undertaken more frequently and that the replies to them can be made more accurate,

1. Recommends that the Fourth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends, Operations of Criminal Justice Systems and Crime Prevention Strategies should be simplified, that it should cover the period 1987-1990 and that subsequent surveys should be carried out at two-year and ultimately one-year intervals;

2. Calls upon Member States to endeavour to provide more complete responses to the Fourth United Nations Survey;

3. Invites the United Nations regional and interregional institutes, in co-operation with the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch of the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs and the Statistical Office of the Secretariat, to review the preparation of the survey questionnaire and the analysis and publication of the results;

4. Invites Member States to provide financial assistance, through the United Nations Trust Fund for Social Defence or in other ways, to countries for the creation and maintenance of criminal justice data bases, at the national and international levels, and to provide the necessary expertise or appropriate international analysis and policy recommendations;

5. Requests the Secretary-General, in his progress report on United Nations activities in crime prevention and criminal justice, to be submitted to the Committee on Crime Prevention and Control at its twelfth session, to make proposals for improving the number and quality of responses to the Fourth United Nations Survey and for publishing the results of such surveys in the regular reports on the state of crime and justice in the world;

6. Requests the Secretary-General to convene a meeting, during the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, to consider the revision of the survey questionnaire, and invites Governments to include in their national delegations persons suited to that task;

7. Further requests the Secretary-General, in particular through the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch and the Statistical Office, and in co-operation with the Department of Technical Co-operation for Development of the Secretariat, to provide assistance to the regional institutes so that training programmes may be organized for criminal justice statisticians and others involved in the preparation of the replies to the surveys with a view to increasing the rate of response;

8. Decides that the Committee on Crime Prevention and Control should review the results of the periodic surveys for inclusion in regular United Nations technical publications on the state of crime and justice in the world.