Initial Methodology for the Crime Proofing of New or Amended Legislation at the EU Level

Abstract

This article builds on the results of the European Union (EU) Crime Proofing Steering Group and of the Mechanisms for Assessing the Risk of Crime (MARC) project’s opening activities. It aims at setting an initial methodology for proofing EU legislation against economic and organised crime, which will be then tested and improved through the case studies envisaged in the project. A four-step procedure is suggested, and the basic components of the draft Crime Risk Assessment Mechanism (CRAM) are then identified in the Legislative Quality Index (LQI), which measures the quality of the law per se; the Market Vulnerability Index (MVI), which measures the effect of a legislative change on the vulnerability of the market to crimes; and the Organised Crime Threat Index (OCTI), which measures the threat posed by organised crime in the sector regulated by the legislative proposal. How these elements should be evaluated (i.e., which indicators are more appropriate and which weight should they have) and at which level crime risk assessment should be performed (i.e., EU or national level) remain open questions. A final article by the same author at the end of this journal seeks to answer to these queries and sets out the definitive CRAM, which is the result of the development of this initial methodology.