Towards the strengthening of security and criminal justice statistical systems in Latin America and the Caribbean

October 7, 2021. As part of the series of videoconferences of the Knowledge Transfer Network of the Statistical Conference of the Americas of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (SCA-ECLAC), the progress of the project ‘Towards the strengthening of security and criminal justice statistical systems in Latin America and the Caribbean’, carried out by the SCA-ECLAC Working Group on Security and Justice Statistics, was presented.

The Working Group was established in 2013 and is coordinated by Mexico’s INEGI; the Technical Secretariat is provided by the Center of Excellence for Statistical Information on Government, Public Security, Victimization and Justice (CoE). It is also made up of the National Statistics Offices (NSOs) of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay, as well as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Oscar Jaimes, General Director for Government, Crime and Justice Statistics at INEGI, was in charge of the presentation. The objective of the working document is to guide national efforts to generate statistical information on security and criminal justice in the countries of the region, within the framework of international standards in this área.

The document presents elements to consider for the strengthening of Security and Justice Statistical Systems and the challenges faced by institutions to improve the collection, analysis and use of data on these matters. It also includes good practices from several countries in the region in terms of security and justice statistics, as well as victimization surveys. The use and development of reliable, timely and comparable records, as well as processes to promote the use of evidence to design, monitor and evaluate policies, is fundamental to prevent crime, strengthen the rule of law and criminal justice.

Salomé Flores, Coordinator of the CoE, emphasized the challenges in the processes of generating statistical information, and that to address them it is key to strengthen the coordination and articulation of the members of the national statistical systems and increase investment in infrastructure for the processes of generating statistics.

The final document is expected to be presented and adopted by the Statistical Conference of the Americas of ECLAC at its next meeting, to be held in November of this year.