WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:08.000 Overall, what would you say are the most important statistics from the latest report into Europe’s present populations? 00:08.000 --> 00:12.500 Well, I would say that the main result is a decrease in the prison population rate, 00:12.500 --> 00:18.000 that means that there are less persons in prison, it’s a decrease of roughly, let’s say 7%. 00:18.000 --> 00:26.000 There is a decrease also of the number of persons entering into prison and the length of time they spend in prison. 00:27.000 --> 00:31.000 So, when we talk about incarceration rates, they have actually increased 00:31.000 --> 00:33.000 in some part of Europe as well, haven’t they? 00:33.000 --> 00:41.000 What’s the reason for the increases in, let’s say, Russia or Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania and many other nations? 00:41.000 --> 00:45.000 This is mainly related to the criminal policies applied by the countries, 00:45.000 --> 00:54.000 so, some countries are more punitive than others and apply longer prison sentences 00:54.000 --> 00:57.500 and this is usually reflected in increasing the prison population rate, 00:57.500 --> 01:01.000 because people spend more time in prison. 01:01.000 --> 01:06.000 Maybe one interesting thing is the decrease in most western European countries, 01:06.000 --> 01:09.500 because this is a decrease that started a few years ago 01:09.500 --> 01:16.000 and it followed the economic or financial crisis that took place, and historically 01:16.000 --> 01:23.000 the logic was that the economic crisis was related to the increases in the prison population rate 01:23.000 --> 01:29.000 and this was mainly explained with theories of the late 19th century, 01:29.000 --> 01:36.000 about this relationship between unemployment and crime but societies are much more complex nowadays, 01:36.000 --> 01:42.000 luckily, we have a welfare state that protects people even when they are unemployed. 01:42.000 --> 01:48.000 And so, contrary to these old theories of the relationship between the unemployment and crime 01:48.000 --> 01:55.000 we see, maybe racism and unemployment but they are not followed by race in the incarceration rate, 01:55.000 --> 01:57.000 which is mainly going down. 01:57.000 --> 02:03.000 And also the crimes that people are going to prison for, they haven’t changed that much 02:03.000 --> 02:12.000 and in so much as it’s still drugs, it’s still murder, homicide, that’s still the general trend, isn’t it? 02:12.000 --> 02:20.000 Yeah, exactly. Because what we see now is that our style of life has changed and we spend a lot of time online. 02:20.000 --> 02:25.500 So there are more crimes that are related to this cyber environment. 02:25.500 --> 02:32.500 But we don’t see precisely this result in the figures because when we talk about cyber space, 02:32.500 --> 02:36.000 you have some crimes that are what we call cyber dependent. 02:36.000 --> 02:42.000 So, you need the Internet to do them, like sending a virus or hacking a computer. 02:42.000 --> 02:46.000 But there are some crimes that are cyber enabled. 02:46.000 --> 02:53.000 So that these were traditional crimes that now are reinforced or done through the Internet, 02:53.000 --> 02:57.400 like, for example, fraud or, for example, bullying. 02:57.400 --> 03:03.000 So, what you see in the statistics is a person is sentenced for fraud or for bullying, 03:03.000 --> 03:06.000 but you don’t know how it was committed. 03:06.000 --> 03:09.400 In the few countries, that are starting to at least flag the cases, 03:09.400 --> 03:14.000 we see, for example, in Switzerland, in last year statistics, 03:14.000 --> 03:22.000 we know now that 70 percent of the frauds, committed in the biggest cantons of Switzerland, were committed online. 03:22.000 --> 03:26.000 But, in the statistics, what you see is fraud, and the person is there for that. 03:26.000 --> 03:29.000 What has changed is the modus operandi. 03:29.000 --> 03:35.000 I think it is an interesting phenomenon, because with industrialisation in the 19th century, 03:35.000 --> 03:39.000 we saw a growth of the cities, and then crime became an urban phenomenon: 03:39.000 --> 03:41.000 an urban phenomenon committed mainly in cities. 03:41.000 --> 03:53.000 Now, we have changed all together to a cyber space and crime will become much commonly committed online. 03:53.000 --> 03:56.000 It is becoming, has become already, much commonly committed online.