Recidivism

Contact info

Population and Education, Social Statistics
Iben Birgitte Pedersen
+45 23 60 37 11

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Recidivism 2021

The purpose of Recidivism is to analyze the extent of new criminality among persons who have been released after serving in jail or have received a guilty decision during a calendar year.

The statistics on Recidivism was made up the first time for persons released or convicted in 2007 and has hereafter been produced annually.

Statistical presentation

The statistics on recidivism form part of the criminal statistics. The criminal statistics include statistics on criminal cases from reported crimes and victims to convictions and also arrests and imprisonments.

The statistics shed light on new criminality among people who have been released after serving in jail or have received a guilty decision during a year. The extent and type of new crimes committed during a follow-up period of two years are calculated.

Furthermore, information on level of education and the extent of criminality the five years previous to the actual year form part of the statistics.

Statistical processing

The source to the statistics are data from other statistical registers operated by Statistics Denmark. Data from the registers are delivered yearly via System-to-system-transmission. Data are already validated. However, central variables go through a probability check in form of a comparison with data from the previous year. Data about decisions, charges and admissions to prisons from Statistics Denmark's criminal statistical registers are linked to data from Statistics Denmark's register of the population's highest level of education and Statistics Denmark's register of Populations Statistics.

Relevance

Statistikken bliver anvendt bredt af myndigheder, organisationer, forskere, pressen mv. Tabellerne i Statistikbanken er hyppigt anvendt. Fremsatte synspunkter og ønsker fra centrale brugere tages i betragtning ved udarbejdelse af statistikken.

Accuracy and reliability

The statistics on recidivism is based on other of Statistics Denmark's statistical registers where the reliability is considered to be good. However, the number of emigrants is assessed to be under-estimated with 15-20 percentages. The statistics include persons who are registered with a decision in the central criminal register at the time the extract to Statistics Denmark is done. A number of decisions made during the calendar year will happen not to be registered at that time. That implies that the total number of persons in the defined population presumably is under-estimated.

Timeliness and punctuality

The statistics are published approximately 1 year and 9 months after the end of the reference period. The punctuality is very high as the statistics usually are published without delay in relation to the scheduled time.

Comparability

Since 2007, the statistics has been prepared on the same date source. In general the statistics is therefore comparable during time.

Some of the published data are not available for all years.

No international comparable statistics are available.

Accessibility and clarity

The statistics on convictions are published in: News from Statistics Denmark, the publication Kriminalitet (Criminality) and in StatBank.

At Statistics Denmark's webpage the statistics furthermore are presented on its Subject Page.

Taylor made statistics can be prepared on bases of the ready-made files. Through Statistics Denmark's Division of Research Service it is possible for researchers to be granted access to anonymized data.