Using officially registered conviction history data, this study examines the criminal careers of 601 members of Dutch outlaw motorcycle gangs, identified as such by the Dutch police. We find that the average 1% er in our sample is a 44-year-old, Dutch-born male. The large majority of these 1% ers have been convicted for a crime at least once. One in four convicted 1% ers can be classified as a chronic offender accumulating over ten convictions from age 12 until 2013. The large majority of 1% ers experiences an adult onset of their officially registered criminal career, with almost half acquiring their first conviction when they are aged 30 or older, challenging the generality of criminology's accepted conclusions about criminal career development.

Current statistics are unclear about the contribution of DNA as a crime-fighting tool. To obtain an objective view on the effectiveness to use DNA as intelligence information we analyzed all forensic reports from serious (N=116) and high volume crime cases (N=2791) over the year 2011 at one police region in the Netherlands. DNA-profile results show that 38 percent of the serious crime traces (N=384) and 17 percent of the high volume crime traces (N=386) did not result in a DNA-profile. Turnaround times of these DNA-traces from crime scene to DNA-report were relatively long; for serious crimes 66 days and for high volume crimes 44 days. Based on these results a suspect was truly identified through a match with the Offender DNA-database of the Netherlands in 3 percent of the serious crime cases and in 1 percent of the high volume crime cases. Insight in DNA-results and adjustments in the analysis process could benefit the use of DNA as a crime-fighting tool.

The current study examined the extent to which risk factors and treatment readiness were related to prison based treatment engagement (i.e. participation and completion), using a large sample of detainees who were a candidate for the Prevention of Recidivism program. Analyses showed that offenders who were treatment ready were over two times more likely to complete treatment programs, compared to offenders who were not. Risk factors did, for the most part, not correlate with treatment participation and completion. Outcomes underlined the importance of motivational aspects and showed the significance of enhancing treatment readiness amongst correctional resocialisation participants.

The quality of the relationship between boys and group workers in a correctional youth facility determines a part of the success of their incarceration. In a Q-study is examined what incarcerated boys consider as important in (the interaction with) group workers. There are four preferences discerned: anxious & willingly; rebellious & defensive; autonomous & indifferent; dependent & approachable. The needs in dealing with group workers of these four differ. Understanding and awareness of these preferences can provide tools for the treatment of boys in a correctional facility. It can enlarge the opportunity for a good relationship and the boys’ readiness to change.

For the occasion of the 40 ^th anniversary of the Netherlands’ Society of Criminology the author has analysed the Society’s archive and related the development of this professional organisation to the development of Dutch criminology in the period between 1974 and 2014. He distinguishes five turning points in this respect: between 1965 and 1974 we witnessed the emancipation of criminology as an autonomous discipline; the period 1978-1985 is characterised by a downfall of criminology at the universities; between 1992 and 1995 a period of restoration started, that is characterised by a focus on criminology’s policy-relevance; from 1999 to 2010 we can witness a recovery, in which academic criminology raised like a phoenix from its ashes; and from that time on we see the discipline broadening up again, in which the dominance of positivist research agendas is countered by a cultural criminology and a more critical attitude towards the production-oriented research policy in general. The bottom line is that the Society followed these trends imperceptibly: it was active when criminology did well and was ‘in rest’ when it did not. The article concludes with the question whether the Society has an active role to play in the public debate about the role of science and crime and punishment.