The Caribbean Community is brought together to strengthen their collection of statistical data on crime through the ICCS

On November 21-23 the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) along with the UNODC-INEGI Center of Excellence in Statistical Information on Government, Crime, Victimization and Justice (CoE), and the Research and Trend Analysis Branch from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) gave a workshop on the implementation of the International Crime Classification for Statistical Purposes (ICCS).

Hosted at the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana, the workshop was attended by 25 representatives of the Police, Prosecutor’s, Judiciary and Prison Systems from The Bahamas, Belize, Guyana and Jamaica. Moreover, all throughout the workshop there was strong presence from the chairs of various CARICOM committees: The Standing Committee of Commissioners of Police; the Standing Committee of Heads of Corrections and Prison Services; the Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians; the Legal Affairs Committee; and the Technical Oversight Committee.

Participants were introduced to the ICCS and its basic structure, the use of disaggregating variables to record detailed information on crimes, victims and perpetrators and the international mandate to report on the SDG Indicators on violence and security. On a more technical level, they were guided on how to properly conduct a mapping process to match their own crime classifications and crime categories with those of the ICCS. Apart from this, countries were also able to review their submissions to the United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of the Criminal Justice System (UN-CTS).

By the end of the workshop, the CARICOM proposed the creation of a Regional Steering Committee to oversee the ICCS adoption process in the Caribbean region. Its Terms of Reference, duties and responsibilities will be developed first by the Secretariat and later on reviewed by all member states and UNODC. With this institutional framework set, efforts will soon be launched to draft national correspondence tables by May 2019.

 

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