The catalogue of criminal offences, also referred to as the offence thesaurus, is a list of legal classifications derived from the Criminal Codes and from national criminal legislation only. The latter consists of ordinary laws which, by virtue of the legislative power reserved by the Constitution to Parliament, are acts adopted by the two Chambers of Parliament.<\/p>\n
At the same level as ordinary laws are the so-called \u201cacts having the force of law\u201d adopted by the Government: decree-laws and legislative decrees. Legislative decrees are adopted by the Government in matters that are generally complex or particularly specific, following a delegation by Parliament. Decree-laws, on the other hand, are acts having the force of law issued by the Government in cases where it is not possible to await the outcome of the ordinary legislative process or the enactment of a delegated law. These sources are complemented by government regulations adopted by the Council of Ministers, which take the formal form of Decrees of the President of the Republic.<\/p>\n
The function of the catalogue, whose computerised version dates back to 1968, is operational, as it must interface with the legal classifications of criminal offences contained in the records of public prosecutors\u2019 offices. To felonies, which constitute the basis of Istat\u2019s summary and analytical classifications, misdemeanours have been added to the list, as they are considered in the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS), as well as administrative sanctions, both pecuniary and non-pecuniary.<\/p>\n
A legal provision is included in the catalogue if it prescribes a criminal sanction and is represented through its constituent elements at the highest possible level of detail. The provision considered is the one that penalises the unlawful conduct, rather than one that merely describes it.<\/p>\n
For this purpose, the relevant article of the Codes is used, or, in the case of supplementary legislation, the year, number and article of the law, including any versions (BIS, TER, etc.), as well as the sub-references of the article: paragraph, letter and number. This representation is complemented by the statutory penalty and by a description derived from the heading of the provision, expanded where necessary in order to better represent the punished act or conduct.<\/p>\n
The correspondence between the elements of the catalogue and the classifications exists only for provisions constituting felonies or misdemeanours. This can be verified by clicking on the (+) icon in the first column to check whether the selected element is a felony or a misdemeanour.<\/p>\n
A dedicated working group, established within the Quality Circle of the Sistan (National Statistical System) on justice and security, is responsible for validating updates to the catalogue of criminal offences in line with new Italian legislation and, at the same time, for implementing the corresponding mappings in the international crime classification.<\/p>\n
The editorial processing of a collection of legislation may result in errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Please report any shortcomings identified, and we thank you in advance for any notifications sent to the following email address: giupen@istat.it<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Note<\/strong>: The research is available in Italian only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n