Since November 2009, the regional police of Groningen facilitated their community officers with Twitter. According to the principles of community policing, they are enabled to shorten the distance between the police and citizens by giving them a direct connection. Such a connection should stimulate interaction, while at the same time it should make people feel more safe. In addition, Twitter also creates possibilities for the police to be transparent. Sharing of information should alter citizens’ perception towards the police.
A comparison has been made, by using an online questionnaire, between followers and two kinds of non-followers. The effects of following twittering community officers have been demonstrated by using statistical analyses, taking into account relevant control variables. On the basis of these analyses it has been demonstrated that following a twittering community officer did not positively or negatively alter the perception of safety of their followers. However, an enhanced information position has made followers much more aware of local disorder and crime. Thanks to shared information about police actions to sustain and improve local safety and livability, followers’ perception of safety has not been altered negatively.
Followers’ perception towards the police organization has been positively altered, thanks to the twittering community officers. Especially the sharing of information and involving citizens into local policing helps the police to alter the perception of citizens towards their organization. In addition, it has been shown that followers’ willingness to report has been improved. Thanks to the ease of use of Twitter and the shortened distance between the police and citizens, followers do frequently contact the police or a community officer to share some information, or to report some crime or disorder. However, it has been shown that Twitter should just be presented as complementary to existing ways to contact the police.

The number of homicides in the Netherlands has been stable for some time but decreased over the last few years. The aim of this study is first, to describe the recent trends in homicide in the Netherlands. Second, we aim to explain the reasons for this recent drop in homicide by using data from the Dutch Homicide Monitor that includes all homicides in the period 1992-2009. Findings suggest that the drop in homicide could be explained by a combination of factors, including change in situational characteristics, change in social cohesion and change in the degree of economic deprivation.

What do we know about the criminological aspects of international crimes? What do they entail and what are facilitating factors which can help us understand their causes and how should we respond to these crimes? Are international crimes merely a more extreme form of ordinary crimes or are they a different kind of criminality? In the past few years a growing number of scholars both at a national and at an international level have devoted their scholarly attention to this important and urgent research theme. In this special issue we aim to present a number of articles in which different perspectives on this topic are presented. By doing so we hope to enhance our knowledge of this phenomenon and to provide an impulse to further criminological research within this area in both the Netherlands and Belgium. This introductory article gives an overview of the state of the art of international crime criminology in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the rest of the world.

From its beginning in 2002, the Dutch Journal of Safety Studies (JSS) has wanted to be a platform for Dutch and Belgian academic articles about all facets of safety and security. Furthermore the journal wants to be a platform for multidisciplinary articles in which safety and security issues are studied from different and complementary perspectives or academic fields.This article provides a content analysis of all 129 JSS-articles. The analysis shows that the focus of JSS is on matters of social safety (and less on the more ‘technical’ safety issues) and on the organization of safety (functioning of organizations or networks and/or the effectiveness of measures) and less on safety as such. Over the years, a few changes have taken place. (1) In the field of social safety the focus has shifted somewhat from ‘the organization of safety’ towards safety as such. (2) Although the proportion of articles from Belgium is small (5,4%), it has increased over the years. (3) Authors from Dutch universities of applied sciences have published no more than 4 articles (3,1%), the first one of which appeared in Volume 6. After some years, these authors discovered the JSS as a platform for their work.JSS covers a wide range of subjects in the field of safety and how it can be organized. Although most articles stem from criminology and/or public management, JSS contains articles from different academic fields such as criminology, communication, law, psychology, engineering, public management, medical science, etc. However, in one and the same article one does not often find a combination of really different academic perspectives, such as engineering and psychology or informatics and criminology. If the JSS aims to be a truly multidisciplinary journal, it should contain more articles of this kind over the next ten years.

Since the legalization of the prostitution sector, not only has the combating of human trafficking through criminal law been substantially fortified, but also the administrative approach to human trafficking in that sector. This integral approach of human trafficking, in which administrative and criminal law measures complement each other, is necessary to combat this harrowing type of crime. The criminal law-administrative approach offers good footholds for a more forceful reaction to human trafficking. Besides the preventive effect administrative measures can have as a complement to criminal law, administrative supervision can also be useful to obtain criminal law information. However, that brings several new dilemmas with it that are connected to the phenomenon of the blurring of spheres. Under certain circumstances, the blurring of spheres between a criminal law and an administrative approach can lead to an improper use of competencies. We conclude that in the manner in which the prostitution sector is currently supervised, the legal protection of the citizen against actions of the supervisor is inadequately guaranteed. That does not mean that information that is obtained through administrative supervision may no longer be used in criminal cases. It is to be recommended however that several changes be made to current practice, which may prevent the improper use of supervisory competencies in prostitution controls.

In this contribution the author reviews: Business as usual? Corporate involvement in international crimes, by Wim Huisman.

The Belgian Customs Administration has taken the lead on the federal level to elaborate an anti-corruption policy. Up till now the initiatives of the administration D&A consisted of: anti-corruption training for the complete staff, a distribution of the relevant regulation concerning corruption and the setting up of an internal complaints desk. These measures suggest that mainly the individual employee has to take responsibility to prevent corruption. Based on three related research stages we conclude that the social-economic context and the organisational characteristics also contribute to the explanation of corruption which implies to go beyond the micro-level when developing an anti-corruption policy. The structure of our analysis is based on the five key variables of Gobert and Punch: the social, economic and cultural characteristics, the nature and structure of the organisation, rationality, neutralisation techniques and moral disengagement and crime facilitative characteristics. This contribution is the first section of a research project on the responsibilities of the public sector and the private companies for public corruption.

There is a large – and still growing – body of criminological literature on the relationship between crime and work. However, the exact nature of that relationship often remains diffuse. In this article we explored the relationships between organized crime and work. Based on analysis of the forty most recent cases of the Organized Crime Monitor we distinguished between two types of relations connecting organized crime and work. First, crimes can be based in the occupation of the offender when the occupation provides concrete opportunities to offend or facilitates the crimes of others. Secondly, the occupation of the offender can also be used as a shield concealing the illegal behavior or identity of the offender.

Employment and crime are commonly assumed to be negatively correlated. Those employed are less likely to commit crimes, and conversely, those who have a criminal record are less likely to become employed. Criminological research has provided strong empirical and theoretical support for the link between employment and crime, but also suggests that a complex set of mechanisms may be at play. Additionally, studies show that employment can also increase the risk of criminal behaviour. In the introduction of this special issue, three causal relationships in the work-crime nexus will be discussed: employment causing crime, employment preventing crime, and crime blocking future employment.

White-collar crime is mostly committed by men. It remains to be seen if this will stay this way. Increasing numbers of women succeed in attaining management positions in organizations. Could we therefore expect an increase in female white-collar crime?Criminological theories on female crime and on white-collar crime lead to contradicting hypotheses.Research on white-collar and organizational crime predominantly produces a situational hypothesis explanation according to which we could expect that the rise of women in organizational hierarchies will also bring more female white-collar crime.Research on female delinquency might lead to an opposite gender-difference hypothesis that would predict less white-collar crime, because they have a lesser tendency to show risky behavior.In this article, both assumptions will be elaborated for further research, against the background of possible gender bias in the relation between women and white-collar crime.

This special issue focuses on the role of sex/gender in Dutch and Belgian criminological and penological research and theory. This introductory article draws the history of thought and research within Dutch-language criminology and explores international developments, in particular the influence of feminist critique on theory and research.This framework serves the positioning of the other contributions, on the one hand research exploring the differences in crime between men and women and on the other hand empirical and theoretical articles focusing on (the social construction of) gender. Finally some innovative methodological findings will be discussed, also with regard to future criminological research.

Municipalities play an increasingly important role in the fight against organized crime. Following Italian and New York examples, the Netherlands have developed several instruments for an administrative approach to organized crime. This article describes these instruments on a local and a national level and discusses its theoretical foundations. A critical assessment is made on the reach of this administrative approach considering the perception and nature of organized crime in the Netherlands. Further, methods for assessing the effectiveness of such an approach are discussed. Has organized crime successfully been targeted and how could this be established?

Public safety governance has been characterised in many ways. Literature mentions traditional sanctions for purposes of repression, policy programs aiming for prevention, as well as cooperation of public, private and hybrid organizations in addressing public safety problems. Very recently, a so called culture of precaution, in which problems of public safety are to be addressed at a very early – premature – stage, would have entered the scene. This potential culture of precaution is topic of this article. The article aims to indicate the empirical manifestations of a culture of precaution, as mentioned in literature, in contemporary public safety governance. The central question is as follows: to what extent and in what way is contemporary public safety governance on municipality level characterised by the precautionary principle? Five municipalities within the police region of Utrecht, varying in size from 40.000 to 300.000 citizens, have been studied; Amersfoort, Bunschoten, Utrecht, Woerden and Zeist. In total 153 measures addressing problems of public safety have been analyzed for characteristics of precaution. In order to do so, a model has been developed which locates precaution next to traditional strategies for addressing public safety. It will be demonstrated that a culture of precaution is not empirically present in public safety governance on municipality level. However, contemporary public safety governance does appear to posses some minor characteristics of the precaution paradigm.

This article focuses on migration with criminal motives. Two specific groups are discussed, British migrants in the Netherlands and Dutch migrants in Spain. Little is written on criminal migration motives in combination with Western subjects. On the other hand, investigative authorities have first-hand knowledge on this matter. An analysis of 25 closed case files shows that within these two groups of migrants, some people are heavily involved in the international drugs trade. Although their numbers are small, their function is important. Through their actions it becomes possible for certain cities or areas to evolve into international criminal drug marketplaces. There are also some differences between British and Dutch criminals abroad. British criminals are often involved as brokers. They broker drugs for third parties in Great Britain. Their stay in the Netherlands seems temporarily. They do not invest in the economy or buy property. Conversely, Dutch criminals in Spain could be described as leaders of organized crime groups. They invest in Spain by buying companies and property.

This article focuses on the differences in perception that appear when the English and Dutch discourses on anti-social behaviour and street terror are compared. The political and media discourses in the Netherlands focus on the migration background of the youth responsible (mainly Moroccan juveniles) whereas in England and Wales the possible influence of discrimination is stressed. The analysis of the two discourses reveals that although the problems in the two countries are in essence comparable, very different discourses have developed.

Starting a decade ago, police authorities in Western Europe have been dealing with (South)Eastern European gangs coming over to Western Europe. These gangs commit a large number of property crimes and are characterised by their high level of mobility. Yet, this raises questions as to how their mobility has to be interpreted: is it temporary, making them criminal tourists, or are there any migration mechanisms involved? This article is based on interviews with offenders charged with selling criminal goods (i.e. fencing). Fencing activities appear to take place either in Western Europe or in the countries of origin. Alongside these activities, their centre of social activity appears to be located in either one of them as well. This heterogeneity indicates there is little added value in combating the Eastern European crime gangs, because different offender types with a different background are involved.