The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations (HEUNI) is the European regional institute in the United Nations Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention programme network. HEUNI functions under the auspices of the Finnish Ministry of Justice as an independent research and policy-making institute.
Our vision is to identify evidence-based criminal justice and crime prevention practices in Europe, and share these within Europe and beyond, in order to advance more effective, rational and humane criminal justice systems.
Our greatest strength is our capacity to develop multidisciplinary research methodologies and utilize them in order to explore new criminological phenomena.
HEUNI’s expertise also encompasses the collection and analysis of data on criminal justice systems, and the development and piloting of victimization surveys and indicators. HEUNI has extensive experience in the development of guidelines and training modules for policy makers and criminal justice practitioners.
HEUNI has a new strategy for the years 2020-2023. The strategy updates, revises and strengthens HEUNI’s operations to suit the demands of the 21st century. While the strategy identifies several core areas of work, it also aims to strengthen HEUNI’s operations and working methods in order to produce increasingly cutting-edge results.
HEUNI has
■ Developed guidelines to prevent abusive recruitment, exploitative employment and trafficking of migrant workers
■ Developed and tested victimization surveys
■ Developed comparative research projects and trained multinational research teams
■ Developed training for private sector representatives on the recognition and identification of human trafficking
■ Developed methodology of using journals as a data source for co-creating a counselling method for GBV victims
Recent projects
2020 - ongoing
Towards a more responsive victim-centered approach of the criminal justice system (RE-JUST 2020-2021)
2018 - ongoing
FLOW. Flows of illicit funds and victims of human trafficking: uncovering the complexities
2017-2019
Co-Creating a counselling method for refugee women GBV victims
2018-2019
Trafficking of children and young people in Finland
