Annual statistics
The statistics is published at national level and to some extent by county.
350 - Division for Social Welfare Statistics
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The statistics on sanctions enable us to tell something about the registered level of sanctions from year to year. The statistics also makes it possible to identify developments over time and has been produced in different ways since 1835. In the first thirty years it only included crimes. In the 1860s the statistics expanded to include sentences and ticket fines for misdemeanours. The current form and content was introduced in 1978, when prosecutions dropped for misdemeanours were included. Until 1996 the statistics was based on simple, summary statements of misdemeanours, while the data on crimes contained detailed specifications. Following a reorganisation in 1997, individual specifications on misdemeanours were included, among other things. From then on crimes and misdemeanours have to a great extent been listed in the same tables, and the distinction between the two types has become less marked. Along with the 1997 reorganisation, a classification of ten groups of offences was introduced in addition to the traditional classification of 40-50 types of offences. A classification of offence of profit, offences of violence, sexual offences and others was removed in 1992 because the definitions, especially for offences of violence, no longer were in accordance with the common understanding of the users.
The main users are the media, researchers and the education sector, the Ministry of Justice and the Police, National Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) and the Office of the Public Prosecutor. Beyond this the statistics form the basis of information to other people or organizations concerning the state and development in the area of crime.
The statistics covers all sanctions wit legal efficay for prosecution conditionally dropped, ticket fines (including on the spot fine) and sentences, registered in the statistical year. The statistics presents an overview of the number of sanctions with information on the offender's age, sex, place of residence and citizenship, the type of offence, scene of crime, type of instance, type of sanction and sentencing.
The data are collected from the central criminal record and police information system (SSP) and the central register for fines (BOT), both owned by the Ministry of Justice and the Police. Data are also collected from the SIRI register under the State Agency for the Recovery of Fines, Damages and Costs. The Norwegian Police Data Processing Service (PDMT) runs out the data.
The statistics is not based on samples, but on the registration of all sanctions each year.
The data are obtained electronically from the registers after the end of the statistical year.
Quality controls aimed at identifying errors and supplying missing information are carried out regularly. Corrections are made in cooperation with the responsible authority.
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Sanction: Each individual sanction is the counting unit in the statistics. A sanction is a ticket fine (including on the spot fine), prosecution conditionally dropped or sanction with legal efficay in the form of community sentence, unconditional or conditional imprisonment and/or fine, sentence delay, preventive detentions, compulsory mental health care sentences or compulsory care sentence. Since each sanction counts as one unit, each sanction against an offender during the year is counted in the statistics.
Sanctioned:Persons with more than one sanction appear only one time, represented by the sanction that includes the offence that carries the highest maximum sentence.
Principal offence: If a sanction includes several offences, it is classified by the offence that carries the highest maximum sentence.
Crimes and misdemeanours: Crimes and misdemeanours against the penal code are dealt with in the 2nd and 3rd part of the code respectively. According to section 2 of the penal code, offences against other acts are defined as crimes if they can be sentenced to minimum three months' imprisonment. The remaining offences are misdemeanours.
Besides this difference in degree between misdemeanours and crimes in criminal law, the manner of dealing with misdemeanours is simpler than for crimes. The police decide whether or not to press charges in misdemeanour cases, while in crime cases it is the public prosecutor. Misdemeanours can to a greater extent than crimes, be settled by fine without a conviction. When proceeding misdemeanours legal counsel is usually not required.
Age: A person's age is defined as his/her age at the time of the offence. If information about the time of the offence is missing, age at the time of sentence is used. In 2004, this rule was applied to 1.5 per thousand of all sanctions, or more than 113 sanctions, almost all of which were fines for misdemeanours.
In the crime statistics both crimes and misdemeanours are treated as crime, although the main emphasis is on crimes. Offence, punishable acts, and crime are used to describe both misdemeanours and crimes.
The following of Statistics Norway's internal standards are used:
Type of offence (see appendix A in NOS Crime Statistics 1999)
Group of offence: Classification of crime into 10 main groups
Scene of crime (county)
Citizenship
After the reorganisation of the statistics in 1997, the statistical unit has been sanction registered in the statistical year as opposed to sanction pronounced in the statistical year, which was used previously. The change was caused by the delay from sanctions being pronounced to registration in the statistical data sources. This new unit therefore implied a relevance improvement. However, the new unit has made the statistics more vulnerable to irregular registration, this was espesially the case in 2007 where 2 000 more crimes than previous years was registrated. Delayed registrations that are being caught up with in the following year may cause changes in the statistics that do not represent any genuine changes in the number of sanctions pronounced. All sanctions are included in the statistics, but the share included in the same year as they were pronounced may vary.
When it is determined what constitutes the principal offence, only the general penal provisions of the law are considered. On rare occasions this method may result in a sanction for an offence that does not carry the highest maximum sentence.
Because of space limitations some types of sanctions are not specified in the tables, but grouped with related sanction types. For instance, unconditional imprisonment combined with a fine is counted as unconditional imprisonment. If such occurrences are frequent or if the types of sanctions are assumed to be of particular interest, they are mentioned in footnotes to the tables.
Sanctions that include a fine combined with imprisonment or community sentence are covered by two of the data sources. SSP shows the exact composition of the sanction, while BOT only shows that the sanction includes a fine. If a case in SSP and a case in BOT are identical with regard to national identity number, jurisdiction, date of primary sentence, type of offence and size of the fine, the case in BOT will not be included in the statistics.
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In broad outline, when it comes to the number of sanctions for crimes and misdemeanours, the statistics is comparable back to 1923 for dismissals, back to the 1860s for the remaining types of sanctions, and back to 1835 for crimes.
Statistics of sanctions is one out of four in the area of crime statistics. The rest are statistics of offences reported, offences investigated and imprisonments. When using crime statistics, it is important to be aware that the various parts do not necessarily refer to the same population of offences. The investigation of an offence can be completed in another year than the year it was reported. The tables under sanctions are therefore not comparable with the tables under the other statistics.
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The statistics is published on the Internet in the third quarter following the statistical year.
Annual statistics are also published in hard copy in NOS Crime Statistics.
Statistical Yearbook of Norway Published annually.
This is Norway
Women and men in Norway
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