Crime in Central and Eastern European Countries in the Enlarged Europe

An enlarged European Union not only means more territory and a greater population, but also more crimes and perpetrators of crimes. The European integration brings a new challenge to criminology. Comparison of crime statistics across countries is still one of the most difficult methodological problems in criminological analyses. Countries differ in respect of their penal systems and penal policies. Reporting and statistical systems are also different. How, then, can one compare crime between European countries? Can one say where it is safer or where the police work better? Can one determine what the manner of data collection should be so that it reflects reality accurately? This article concentrates on a representation of some trends of crime in Central and Eastern European countries. A main source of information about crime are official crime statistics collected according to the methodological rules worked out by the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics. In the case of homicide, police data are confronted with vital statistics gathered by the World Heath Organization (WHO). The statistics on assault and robbery were compared, as much as possible, with the victimization data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS). The socio-economic context of the crime, the main circumstances of the crime statistics, which affected the interpretation of the crime trends for Central and Eastern European Countries, is presented.