The primary goal of this article is to survey the various criminological study programmes in the Netherlands and Flanders and of the jobs students attain after graduating in criminology. The theoretical question posed is to what extent the enormous expansion of criminology over the last decade has contributed to the scientific development of criminology as a discipline and to better-informed crime policies. Though the answer to this question remains limited to an ‘it depends on how you look at it’ position, the author is not pessimistic. Taking into account the current grim penal climate and the fact that the criminologist is a relative newcomer on the Dutch labour market, the positions criminology students have been able to gain – with jobs within the police force, in research and policy-development as prime fields – give reason to be hopeful, if reflexivity and overview remain the primary educational goals and practical skills training is not seen as the ‘trick box’ for the ‘quick fix’ of the safety problem.

The social network approach is gaining influence among criminologists studying organized crime and terrorism. The theoretical concept, however, still needs further elaboration. To this end, concepts developed within the field of economic sociology could provide a substantial contribution. Economic sociologists have, among other things, focused on the role of social networks with regard to the completion of economic transactions. They regard mutual trust built through personal relations as an essential part of economic transactions, particularly if these imply certain risks for the parties involved. In other words, before transactions materialize, the parties must first be able to establish trustworthy personal relations. Based on these ideas, Spapens introduced in 2006 the theoretical concept of the criminal macro network, being a social network consisting of individuals able and willing to engage in illegal activities. The capital of each member of the criminal network consists, on the one hand, of his links, defined as information relations, within the network. On the other hand, a person’s position is determined by personal knowledge and skills. It is assumed that executing an actual illegal activity – e.g. drug production, trafficking human beings, bank robbery – requires cooperation between a subset of members of the criminal network, the criminal group.An extensive study of xtc production in the south of the Netherlands between 1996 and 2004 revealed the existence of a ‘xtc network’ consisting of individuals interconnected by social relations. The macro network proved to be relatively stable over time. The composition of the criminal groups, however, changed regularly. This was not only explained by shifting business opportunities, but also by the efforts of the police and the Public Prosecution Service leading to convictions and the dismantling of criminal groups. Better knowledge of the functioning of the criminal macro network can provide valuable contributions to criminological understanding of organized crime. These insights are of course also of great practical importance for law enforcement agencies.

In this paper, recent social network research in the area of juvenile delinquency is reviewed. Two main subjects are distinguished: first, studies in which Social Network Analysis is used to enhance our insights into the relation between delinquent peers and own delinquent behavior; second, the use of Social Network Analysis to get a better picture of delinquent groups and youth gangs. Two examples of social network analyses in the field of juvenile delinquency are elaborated. These examples combine visual depiction of networks with quantitative analyses of network characteristics, illustrating the complementary nature of both approaches. The literature and the examples show that Social Network Analysis lead to a more nuanced and complex insight into the role of delinquent peers in delinquent behavior and the structure of groups of young offenders.