Classification of group of offence

The standard classifies all punishable acts – also referred to as offences or crime – authorised by the Norwegian penal codes and special legislation up to and including 2014. The standard includes a total of 10 groups of offences. However, in Statistics Norway’s crime statistics, pooled variants of this standard have been used, as well as variants only including crimes (labelled “groups of crime”) and in some cases also misdemeanours (labelled “groups of misdemeanour”). From the 1980’s and until present day, the police and other agencies in the justice sector have registered offences based on a pre-structured set of codes, also known as «STRASAK-codes» or «statistical groups». Since the introduction of this practice, more than 1 200 codes have been used to classify offences, and all historical codes are included in the standard. The time of offence can be decisive in deciding which penal legislation and corresponding set of codes is used in each individual criminal case. From the early 1990s up to and including 2014, the classification of the police codes for offences into these 10 groups of offences have been all but a joint standard which was used in both Statistics Norway’s and the police’ statistics (referred to as “types of crime” in the police registers and statistics). Statistics Norway and the Police Directorate (POD) made independent decisions in their respective classifications of groups and types of offences, but engaged in cooperation on the content and maintenance of these classifications through participation in the Council for Electronic Criminal Proceedings in the Police and Higher Prosecution Authority (RESP). Which of the police codes for offence is included in the individual groups of offences by Statistics Norway’s standard is described under “Correspondences” attached to the individual version of Standard for Group of offence. Over the course of 2015, substantial changes came about in the penal legislation, corresponding codes and to the registration practice in the police register. These changes necessitated the restructuring of the Standard for Group of offence and the Standard for Type of offence. In version 2015 of Standard for Type of offence, there are 9 groups of offences at the highest level in the classification. From 2015 and onwards, these 9 groups replace the now expired standard containing 10 groups of offences. The subsequent changes in raw data and the standard has led to a number of breaks and shifts in the time series between several types of offence in the crime statistics after the statistical year 2014 (see About the version Group of offence 2014, with link to an article about “The new crime statistics” (in Norwegian only), and About the Standard for Type of offence with the version Type of offence 2015).

Group of offences 2014

Group of offence 2014 has been used in a relatively unchanged manner in Statistics Norway’s crime statistics since the publication of NOS Crime statistics 1994 (NOS C329 1994, published in 1996) until and including the year 2014. Standard for Group of offence and Standard for Type of offence were both in use until 2014, with the latest versions being Group of offence 2014 and Type of offence 2006. These two standards are in part non-corresponding classifications of offences, due to not being part of the same hierarchical grouping – as they are now in the Standard for Type of offence from 2015 and onwards. All time series published in the individual crime statistics, including years before 2014, are grouped in almost the same way as Group of offence 2014 – as it is defined in the correspondence between Group of offence 2014 and Police codes for offences 2014. Tables in the StatBank with breakdowns by Group of offence 2014 can be made by selecting “Group of offence -2014”. All Statbank tables allocated by Group of offence 2014 will have 2014 as the final statistical year, thus indicated with “(closed series)”.