Information and Communication Technology for the Public Prosecutor's Office

This volume is a collection of papers and national reports written for the research project Information and Communication Technology for the Public Prosecutor's Office, which is being coordinated by the Research Institute of Judicial Systems of the National Research Council (IRSIG-CNR), Italy. The project had the financial support of the AGIS Programme European Commission, Directorate General Justice and Home Affairs The papers presented here deal in-depth with various issues relating to the use of technologies by the public prosecution service in combating crime in six countries: Denmark, England & Wales, Finland, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. To ensure a certain level of homogeneity in the information given, and in order to facilitate cross-border comparisons, the papers have been written following a common format prepared by the project partners. In particular, the research focuses on information and communication technology (ICT) applications in four areas: 1) use of ICT in case investigations; 2) use of ICT for case management; 3) ICT interoperability between public prosecutor's offices, courts, police and prisons; 4) ICT for sharing prosecutorial information between countries. Since ICT initiatives cannot be developed in a vacuum, each paper also presents some information on the institutional settings and the role of the public prosecution service in each country. The first chapter of the volume offers a comparative analysis of the case studies. This research project stresses the need to increase efforts and investments in the pursuit of judicial cooperation in the area of criminal law. It contributes to the fostering of mutual knowledge of European judicial systems and the sharing of successful practices and technological solutions. It also highlights, the challenges that still have to be faced if data and information are to be shared transnationally.

Questo lavoro è il frutto di oltre due anni di ricerca co-finanziata dalla Commissione Europea, programma AGIS, progettata, diretta e coordinata dall'autore. Il libro descrive per la prima volta lo stato dell'arte delle tecnologie utilizzate dagli uffici del pubblico ministero in diversi paesi europei e da Eurojust. Si tratta di un contributo originale che ha contribuito ad indirizzare le politiche della commisssione europea sulla creazione di un'area comune di giustizia anche attraverso gli investimenti in tecnologie dell'informazione e della comunicazione.