Table of Contents
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Description
Crime levels have a major impact on the social cohesion of communities and on the question whether they are liveable or not. They can also have serious harmful effects on victims' psychological well-being. Burglaries (crimes against property) and violent crimes (crimes against the person) have been linked to unemployment and poverty and aspects of lifestyle, such as drug and alcohol abuse. During the last decennia, organised crime and terrorism have had increasingly severe impacts on public life and security, especially in open, democratic societies.
Policies that more or less directly affect these issues can me manifold as they include safety measures of public transport – both passengers and dangerous goods, energy plants, military complexes, all of which are sensitive to terrorist attacks. With regard to crime, policies encompass cross-border security and controls, cooperation between national and international police and intelligence services, legislation against drug trafficking, the management and organisation of large-scale public events in sports and entertainment, as well as organised crime – including mafia-style networks - in construction and agricultural sector to name just a few.
This impact area is further specified by the taxonomy terms: Crime, terrorism or security; Crime detection and gains from crime; Number of crimes; Law enforcement capacity; Security interests; Legal rights of citizens; and Crime victims
This text is for information only and is not designed to interpret or replace any reference documents.
Relevant Policies
Directive on the coordination of the award of certain public works, public supply and public service contracts in the fields of defence and security (2007)
Communication on enhancing urban transport security (2007), TREN: Communication giving broad policy orientations
Legal Basis for the Commission to act
The creation of a common area of freedom, security and justice has been asserted as an aim of the European Union since the Amsterdam treaty. As regards criminal justice, the aim is to ensure that cross-border crimes are dealt with more efficiently and that individuals have their rights guaranteed equally, no matter under which Member State's jurisdiction their case is being heard in, whether they are suspects, accused or victims.
Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union specifically refers to terrorism as one of the serious forms of crime to be prevented and combated by developing common action in three different ways: closer cooperation between police forces, customs authorities and other competent authorities, including Europol; closer cooperation between judicial and other competent authorities of the Member States; and approximation, where necessary, of rules on criminal matters.
This text is building upon the work of the European Commission – DG Justice: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/policies/criminal/policies_criminal_intro_en.htm
Web Resources
Crime and Criminal Justice (Statistics in Focus 36/2009): http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-09-036/EN/KS-SF-09-036-EN.PDF
Crime and Criminal Justice (Statistics in Focus 19/2008): http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-08-019/EN/KS-SF-08-019-EN.PDF
Contact
Related Terms
Crime detection and gains from crime
Publications and applications
Content for this term
| Title | Type | Updated date |
|---|---|---|
| Crime, Terrorism and Security | Impact Area | 2014-01-22 16:36 |
Last review by Dirk Wascher about 7 years ago.