Policy cycle in security

The Eurostat section on crime and criminal justice is a relevant source. The database provides demo­graphic contextual information. All data are disag­gregated by sex and include the following areas:

1. recorded intentional homicides and sexual offences,
2. persons in the criminal justice system,
3. court processes,
4. prison and prisoner characteristics,
5. crime – historical data.

However, the data sets are limited due to a lack of sex-disaggregated data collected in a rigorous and methodical way by some Member States. Comparing countries may not be possible and could lead to misleading inferences or wrong con­clusions. Adherence to European norms on data collection, storage and analysis requires a buy-in from national statistical agencies. Additionally, different criminal justice systems rely on different definitions, reference times, norms and counting and calculation methods. It may therefore be challenging to identify gender-related patterns in crime.

The cybercrime repository brings together, in a central location, all national-level cybercrime laws (including legislation and case-law) and lessons learned, in order to facilitate ongoing assessment of needs and criminal justice capabilities. The da­tabase is searchable, which means that references to gender, women and men in national legislation can be identified.

The final report from Lancaster University pub­lished in 2018, presents EU-wide data on THB with sex and age breakdown on victims and perpetra­tors (suspects, prosecutions and convictions), on forms of exploitation and nationality.

In 2017, UNODC produced the ‘Handbook on Children Recruited and Exploited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups – The role of the justice system’. This document provides a detailed assess­ment of strategies for preventing the recruitment of children by terrorist and violent extremist groups. The report draws attention to the importance of integrating a gender and cultural dimension into such mechanisms and is therefore an important resource for considering a gender perspective.

EIGE’s report Gender-Specific Measures in An­ti-Trafficking Actions provides a gender analy­sis of the provisions and obligations under the anti-trafficking directive and the victims’ rights directive, identifying strengths and opportunities for improvement in the protection and response to the needs of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation.

The study is situated within the law and policy en­vironment in the EU on anti-trafficking in human beings and on gender equality. This includes anal­ysis of the gender dimension of each of the fields that are identified as priorities in the EU Strategy (COM(2012) 286 final) towards the eradication of trafficking in human beings (victim assistance, law enforcement, prevention by demand reduction, coherence and coordination, and knowledge and emerging concerns).

The report aims to strengthen the response of all relevant actors for child protection. The protection of those girls and boys is paramount and an ob­ligation for EU Member States, derived from the international and European legal framework. The guide includes a focus on child victims of trafficking and children at risk, implementing an action set forth in the 2017 Communication stepping up EU action against trafficking in human beings, and takes into account identified patterns, including with respect to the gender specificity of the crime.

 

In the dangerous women project, Professor Liz Campbell provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on organised crime from a gender perspective. The report identifies the limited con­sideration of the roles women adopt and play and the lack of attention given to the gendered impact of policy measures – such as, at a national level, the Criminal Justice and Licensing Act 2010, which makes it an offence for a person to fail to report to the police their knowledge or even suspicion that another person is involved in, or directs, organised crime. This crime of omission is categorised as such because it is an individual’s failure to act or to prevent harm, rather than a positive action, which constitutes the offence. Knowledge of organised crime can come from employment or from personal relationships. The latter has significant gendered implications. For example, in Scotland, the majority of those involved in organised crime are men (89 %). This means that the burden of reporting falls on partners (the majority of whom will be women). The report draws attention to how this encroaches on private and family life (protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights). This places an unjustifiable and dangerous burden on partners, spouses and children.

Professor Roberta Guerrina, Dr Katharine Wright and Dr Laura Chappell have been examining the impact of feminist triangles on generating institutional buy-in for gender in the area of Eu­ropean security and defence. Two studies high­light the importance of feminist constellations in supporting the inclusion of this agenda in a policy domain traditionally reluctant to work towards, or resistant to, the full operationalisation of gender mainstreaming as a policy strategy. This work identifies three groups of critical actors: experts operating within the institutions, advocacy groups holding the organisations to account and, finally, epistemic communities. The development of the EU’s role as a feminist foreign policy actor overlaps with the emergence of a feminist constellation in this broader policy field.