DATA QUALITY AS A CHALLENGE TO MODERN POLICING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

The contribution presents some reasons why data quality can be a challenge to contemporary policing and criminal justice, then shows the characteristics of ordinary available data and the framework of theoretically proposed questions for data collection. Main elements of data quality, which are necessary for achieving data bases and data of high quality are discussed. Last but not least the need for proactive approach to data management is emphasised because it can promote the change from experience based to theoretically founded data management. "A healthy democracy needs a healthy number system, and anything that erodes that number system undermines democracy" (Kenneth Prewitt, American Sociological Association, 1999). Data is the Latin word for 'things given'; it might be more appropriate to call it (it collectively, or them, if you are thinking about individual items of information) capta; 'things taken'. or, indeed, wrested with a great deal of effort from a recalcitrant social world. Michael Procter, 1993