JUSTIS
JUSTIS (Justice Indicators) is a project co-financed by the European Community ́s FP7 2007-2013 and designed to provide EU institutions and Member States with new indicators for assessing public confidence in justice. The project started in March 2008 and will last for three years.
The aim of the project is to develop and pilot survey-based indicators of:
- public’s confidence in the institutions of justice
- public sense of personal security.
It should assemble contextual data for interpreting the indicators –on the assumption that there are close relationships between public perceptions of justice and the substantive quality of justice as reflected in the workings of the justice process. The project will aim not only to develop scientifically credibleindicators but also to build some consensus across Member States about the importance of assessing crime policy against criteria of public confidence, making effective dissemination a priority.
The current activities are based on the review of the need for European-wide social indicators of public confidence in justice for policy assessment. At the moment, each project partner is collecting and reviewing the relevant research literature on the themes of confidence/trust and fear/anxiety/insecurity in their own country. In addition, the perceived need for confidence indicators amongst scientists, criminal justice managers and government officials is being mapped out in each country, through the use of surveys and in-depth interviews.
A first international conference on JUSTIS is planned in spring 2009. Presentations about the JUSTIS project have already been given at the World Congress of Criminology in Barcelona in July 2008 and at the Stockholm Criminology Symposium in June 2008.
Project participants include:
London School of Economics and Political Science, UKUniversity of Sheffield, UKKing’s College London, UKEuropean Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations, FinlandCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique, FranceCenter for the Study of Democracy, BulgariaCentre for Political Communications Research of the Institute for Political Sciences, HungaryCentre for Crime Prevention in LithuaniaDepartment of Criminal Sciences, University of Parma, Italy
The project is coordinated by Professor Mike Hough from King’s College London. 2LSmike.hough@kcl.ac.uk
Further information to the project procedure: http://www.eurojustis.eu/index.php