About EB-CRIME

In 2022, The International Centre for Evidence-Based Criminal Law (EB-CRIME) was granted almost 18 million SEK from the Swedish Research Council to conduct research into sources of errors in different types of evidence that are commonly occurring in criminal jurisdictions worldwide.

In criminal cases, errors in the methods used as well as in the human interpretations can result in issues such as wrongful suspicions or convictions, ineffective usage of resources and poor legitimacy. EB-CRIME introduces a new scientific approach to criminal law; evidence-based criminal law, which promotes that, for example, police officers, prosecutors, forensic medical doctors and judges work in evidence-based ways and thereby prevent errors.

The research is enabled by collaborations between researchers in multidisciplinary projects, all of which are directly relevant for criminal case procedures. In total, we are 11 researchers within nine different scientific disciplines. We collaborate in six subprojects addressing oral statements (source evaluation), digital evidence, molecular diagnostics (DNA-and protein analysis), forensic medicine, forensic anthropology and age estimations. Among us are researchers from Uppsala University, Stockholm University, the Norwegian police university college/Oslo university and University College London (UCL). This constellation of researchers from different scientific disciplines is needed to reflect the fact that, in criminal cases, the evidence regularly draw from scientific disciplines that are distinctively different from law.

Through its focus on evidentiary questions (issues of fact) rather than legal paragraphs and principles (issues of law), the EB-CRIME research distinguishes itself from already existing research. Unique novel collaborations are carried out not only between researchers in different scientific disciplines but also with practitioners in national as well as international criminal jurisdictions.