A few remarks on estimating criminal trial costs in Poland by means of inferential statistics

Abstract

Background: The paper attempts to estimate criminal trial costs in Poland by means of existing official data as well as survey data dedicated to such costs.

Research purpose: The paper aims to empirically answer several weighty questions concerning the estimation of criminal trial costs in Poland.

Methods: An attempt was made to benefit from existing official data found in accounting records reported regularly by individual courts of justice, as well as by the Ministry of Justice. However, both attempts failed, so the only credible source of data was the database elaborated within research project no 2015/19/B/HS5/01217 “Criminal trial costs in the light of law and economics analysis”, funded by the National Science Centre of Poland (NCN), and supervised by Prof. Dobroslawa Szumilo-Kulczycka, PhD from the Jagiellonian University. Information collected in the database enabled the author to formulate a few research hypotheses – presented in the form of brief questions – to be verified using appropriate statistical methods (test for two means, ANOVA method, multi proportions test).

Conclusions: Although the database elaborated for the NCN project constitutes an unprecedented source of credible data regarding criminal trial costs in Poland, any attempts to generalize possible conclusions that could be drawn on the basis of this data for all Polish courts must be cautious. This is because, in the light of the statistical analyses carried out in this investigation, the data cannot be regarded as fully representative. Additionally, diversification in the structure of criminal acts across individual courts cannot explain the actual differences in the criminal trial costs reported by individual courts