Criminal groups have traditionally been the focus of criminological research because of the collective dimension of many criminal activities or deviance. However, what constitutes a ‘criminal group’ or how specific criminal groups, like gangs, should be defined, remains open for discussion in the scientific literature. This introductory article highlights a number of recent developments illustrating the blurring boundaries between various criminal groups as defined by both insiders and outsiders. In addition, it suggests that the rise of social media and smartphones is changing the structure and dynamics of criminal groups. Future research should focus on how these (new) criminal groups originate, develop and function, but should also address the role of the group in criminal activities.

This paper describes the results of twelve criminal investigations into criminal activities of hardcore supporters of a Dutch soccer club. The information from these criminal investigations consists of among other 74,246 transcribed, wiretapped telephone conversations and 643 pages with transcribed, secretly recorded conversations in cars (between March 2009 and June 2013). The organization and execution of these criminal activities (particularly large-scale drugs trade and extortion) is described within the context of the daily activities of these hardcore supporters. This context consists of regularly visiting soccer games (in the Netherlands and abroad), bars and the supportershome, and the subculture of hooliganism. The results show a criminal group using the opportunity structures related to hooliganism for carrying out criminal activities.

This study contains a qualitative framing analysis of outlaw motor clubs in Dutch newspaper articles. These clubs appear in the news as a source for positive framing to counterbalance the prevailing organized crime frame. The study shows with what rhetorical means club members are framed and how news media balance a criminal and a non-criminal image. In news articles club members refer to ethical norms and group values, and appear to employ mitigation strategies which take the hard edges off the frame and simultaneously increase their credibility.

Collective violence around football has been a topic of research since the 1980s. In the Netherlands, in recent decades the size and severity of this problem have decreased sharply and the number of incidents has stabilized due to measures taken. At the same time, these measures have resulted in an increase of football-related incidents outside stadiums and on other days than match days. Confrontations based upon prior mutual agreements, so-called arranged confrontations, are an example of this. Based on multiple research methods, in this article the underlying causes of arranged confrontations and processes influencing individual participation are addressed. Results show that this type of collective violence and partaking in it has various causes and explanations. These fit with extant research literature in the area of group crime and collective violence and are incorporated in the recently developed initiation-escalation model.

Over the last twenty years, research on desistance from crime and on restorative justice has grown rapidly and both have emerged as exciting, vibrant, and dynamic areas of contemporary criminological interest. While the implementation of restorative justice practices in Europe has been essentially victim-oriented, there has always also been an emphasis on including the moral and social rehabilitation of the offender. This more offender-centred approach to restorative justice and its practices is not limited to the evaluation of its ability to reduce crime, but is to be seen within the connection between reparation, resettlement (reintegration into the community after sentence), and desistance from crime. This article examines, from a broad perspective, but including some data from research on victim-offender mediation in prison, the capacity of restorative justice interventions to impact positively on offenders’ likelihood of stopping committing criminal offences.

This article presents some of the results of a study in which 25 adult men were interviewed who took part in restorative mediation in the French speaking part of Belgium and were desisting from crime. Their narratives were used to find out whether participation in restorative justice influenced positively their journey towards desistance; if so, which factors in restorative mediation supported this change process and how these factors had been helpful. The results suggest that restorative mediation has the potential to contribute to desistance in a humble, but significant way. Core aspects of mediation supported mostly already started desistance processes and they were helpful in a mainly cognitive way. The authors propose to further investigate the specific and helpful ‘presence’ of mediators and to reflect upon the apparent absence in restorative mediation of practical follow-up support towards desistance.

This empirical study examines how criminal investigative police officers (re)construct a criminal case and the vulnerabilities of their logic.The investigation process is analyzed through Goffman’s framing and interaction theories. While Goffman’s theories have been widely applied to other disciplines, such contributions remain rare in criminology. Here, they shed light on how detectives understand and give meaning to the situation surrounding the criminal case they encounter. The results indicate that this approach shows promise for improving our understanding of the investigative process, if complemented by other theoretical views.

The spatial concentrations of crime are increasingly being studied in smaller units of analysis. This study examines the extent to which crime levels occur at micro places. Weisburd argues there is a law of crime concentration at micro places. His so-called ‘law of crime concentration at places’ states that within an urban context a limited bandwidth of micro places is associated with a specific cumulative proportion of crime (e.g. 25 or 50 percent of crime in a city). In this study the authors investigate Weisburd’s statement in regard to crime concentrations in two large Belgian cities. Official police crime statistics (PCS) for the period 2004-2012 were used. There are several ways to define and operationalize a micro place. Therefore, this study also examines whether the unit of analysis has implications for the concentration of crime at places. Analyses were conducted at two small levels, namely: grid level (using 200 meters by 200 meters grid cells) and the level of the statistical sector (more or less similar to four digit postcode areas or CBS-neighborhoods). This study shows that the concentrations of crime at grid cells are in line with the findings of Weisburd. This trend is consistent in time, for the types of crime as well as for the two cities involved. The concentrations of crime at the level of the statistical sector appear to be less strong and therefore are not in line with the law of crime concentration at places.