NCJ Number
183534
Date Published
1999
Length
11 pages
Annotation
In December 1997, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly requested the Secretary General to overview the state of crime and criminal justice worldwide for presentation at the opening of the Tenth UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders; this report contains a description of major crime trends and developments since the 1995 UN Congress.
Abstract
The report begins by noting that globalization has created opportunities for new forms of criminality and that the changing structure of trade, finance, communications, and information has fostered an environment in which criminality is not confined to national borders. Further, few government policymakers, criminal justice officials, economic development experts, and scholars dispute that the scope of crime is expanding and that crime is becoming more complex. Crime trends can be affected by political instability, such as in the Russian Federation and South Africa, and organized crime is not confined to countries with economies in transition or developed countries. Governments have been struggling with how to regulate commerce and associated crime on the Internet and are looking to the UN for assistance in addressing new and emerging types of crime. Organized crime, corruption, and trafficking in human beings represent the major concerns of the international community in the field of crime prevention. The same issues are the focus of global programs of the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme. Statistics are provided on recorded crimes in European Union countries, Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Asia and the Pacific, and other selected countries. 13 notes and 4 figures