Crime
Recorded offences, offences sent to court and cleared offences. The data of recorded offences also include attempts. Individuals and offences with regard to whom or which the proceedings were terminated Individuals sent to court | |
Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK) | |
Legal system | |
Additional punishment – court can impose one principal penalty together with one or more additional punishments. The principal penalty and the additional punishment cannot be of the same kind. Court can impose as an additional punishment a fine, deprivation of the right to be employed in a particular position or to operate in a particular area of activity and deprivation of the right to wear national decorations of merit. Cleared offence – the offence sent to the court and the offence the proceedings of which have been terminated in pre-trial procedure pursuant to § 201–205 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Court of 1st instance – county or administrative court (until 1.01.2006 county, city or administrative court). Court of 2nd instance – circuit court. Court of higher instance – the Supreme Court. Criminal offence – an offence which is provided for in the Penal Code and the principal punishment prescribed for which in the case of natural persons is a pecuniary punishment or imprisonment and in the case of legal persons, a pecuniary punishment or compulsory dissolution. Definitively sentenced – if an appeal or protest was not filed, the court judgment enters into force upon the expiry of the time limit established for filing the appeal or protest. In case the appeal or protest was filed, the court judgment enters into force, unless it is disaffirmed, after the criminal case has been examined by the court of higher instance. Finally cleared offence – the offence which judgment of conviction has entered into force and the offence the proceedings of which have been terminated pursuant to § 201–205 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. First degree offence – an offence the maximum punishment prescribed for which in the Penal Code is imprisonment for a term of more than five years, life imprisonment or compulsory dissolution (Criminal Code – imprisonment for a term exceeding eight years). Intentionally committed criminal offence – intent is deliberate intent, direct intent or indirect intent. A person is deemed to have committed an act with deliberate intent if the aim of the person is to create circumstances which belong to the necessary elements of an offence and is aware that such circumstances occur or if he or she at least foresees the occurrence of such circumstances. A person is also deemed to have committed an act with deliberate intent if the person assumes that the circumstances which constitute the necessary elements of an offence are an essential prerequisite for the achievement of the aim. A person is deemed to have committed an act with direct intent if the person knowingly creates circumstances which belong to the necessary elements of an offence and wants or at least tacitly accepts the creation of the circumstances. Juvenile – under 18-year-old person. Offender under probation – see Probationer. Principal penalty – court can impose the following principal penalties: fine, deprivation of the right to be employed in a particular position or to operate in a particular area of activity, arrest, imprisonment (incl. conditional sentence). Probationer – a convicted offender who has been given a conditional sentence or released on parole and whom a court has placed under the supervision of a probation supervisor for a probationary period pursuant to the procedure provided for in the Criminal Code. Recorded criminal offence – the act defined in the special part of the Penal Code with regard to which criminal proceedings have been initiated or which is recorded in criminal proceedings. Second degree offence – an offence the punishment prescribed for which in the Penal Code is imprisonment for a term of up to five years or a pecuniary punishment (Criminal Code – imprisonment for a term not exceeding eight years). | |
Offence Person | |
Offences FRAME Not applicable | |
Estonia as a whole Counties – data for recorded offences | |
1995–… | |
Not applicable |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. | |
The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act. The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here. |
Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month). | |
All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar. |
Not published | |
The data have been also published in the “Statistical Yearbook of Estonia” and “Counties in Figures”. | |
The data are published in the statistical database https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject area “Social life / Justice and security / Crime” in tables JS001: Recorded offences by degree/type JS009: Recorded offences by county and degree/type of offence | |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes. | |
Data serve as input for statistical activities 50101 “Regional development” and 50201 “Sustainable development indicators”. The short-term criminal proceedings statistics are published by the Ministry of Justice. | |
Not available | |
Not available |
To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act. | |
Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions. |
Ministry of Justice Office of the Prosecutor General Police and Border Guard Board The Association of Municipalities of Estonia | |
Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys. | |
Administrative data show only the statistics of public authorities. |
The data are nationally comparable. In international comparison, differences in national legal systems should be taken into account. | |
Until 2007, Statistics Estonia received data on recorded criminal offences, their clearance and suspension of pre-trial investigation together with the data on offenders from the Police Board as an exception from their central database. Until 2002 the data included offences recorded at the Security Police Board, from 1998 also those recorded by the General Staff of the Defence Forces and from 1999 those recorded by the Tax and Customs Board, the Border Guard Administration and the Labour Inspectorate. The new Penal Code entered into force on 1 September 2002. Therefore the data on some types of criminal offences are not comparable with those of the previous year. Also the definitions of the degrees of criminal offences were changed. The maximum punishment prescribed for a criminal offence in the first degree is imprisonment for a term of more than 5 years, in the Criminal Code the corresponding term was 8 years. Starting from 2003 the term ‘administrative offence case’ has been replaced by the term ‘misdemeanour matter’. Since 2002 the data for which the Criminal Code and the Penal Code are homologous are conventionally summed up in review, if this was not the case the category is shown as not applicable. An offender is known only for cleared offences. Until 1999 among cleared offences only offences committed and cleared during the same year were shown. From 1999 offences committed in earlier years and cleared in the surveyed year were added. Since 2009 Statistics Estonia publishes crime statistics on the basis of aggregated data of e-file about criminal proceedings backwards from the year 2006 and about recorded offences from the year 2003. The data are not comparable with time series published previously due to the change of methodology and data source. Changes in legislation directly influence crime statistics. The Criminal Code as well as other acts are continuously being improved. When analysing the represented data this should be taken into consideration. When comparing 2018 data to earlier data, the change in the administrative division in 2017 must be taken into account. Data on 1st and 2nd degree offences in 2019 and 2020 cannot be published due to technical reasons. Data on 2nd degree offences in 2018 were revised on 31 March 2021. Data on 1st degree offences “Not distributed by county” were also adjusted on 31 March 2021. | |
When comparing data from different sources, methodological differences should be kept in mind. | |
The outputs of the statistical activity are coherent. |
The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia. | |
The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available. |
SURVEY DATA Not used ADMINISTRATIVE DATA The following data are received from the Ministry of Justice: recorded offences by type; individuals (incl. juveniles) against whom proceedings were terminated, by type of proceedings; persons (incl. juveniles) sent to court by type of proceedings; offences sent to court by type of proceedings and type of offence; terminated proceedings by degree of offence and type of proceedings; offences with final procedural decision and cleared offences by degree of offence; recorded offences by county and type of offence. DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES Not used | |
Annual | |
The Ministry of Justice collects data through e-Toimik from the institutions participating in the criminal proceedings. Statistics Estonia receives aggregated data from the Ministry of Justice by e-mail. | |
The data are compared with the data of previous periods. | |
The collected data are converted into statistical output. This includes calculating additional indicators. | |
Not applicable |