BRUSSELS – Crime figures in Belgium have been unreliable for the last four years, it was reported on Wednesday.

The newspapers De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad and Het Volk discussed the findings of two leading criminologists writing in the legal journal ‘Panopticon’.

Paul Ponsaers and Willy Bruggeman argued that from 1994 to 2000 a reliable system of recording crime was used.

However, in the middle of 2001 a new system was introduced for collating figures and the old system was scrapped.

Ponsaers and Bruggeman are unhappy about the figures now available, stating the new system was chosen by a reformed police service without expertise in statistics.

[Copyright Expatica 2005]

Subject: Belgian news