The Financial Action Task Force reported that money launderers may operate in professional money laundering networks. Whether such money laundering networks operate in the Netherlands is unclear. In this article the authors therefore explore whether professional money launderers collaborate in network structures and the business-like manner in which they offer their services. Business-like refers to their involvement in multiple cases, the amount of repeat customers, and excludes family relations. The research is based on Dutch police registrations of 236 professional money launderers. Our results suggest that professional money laundering networks are indeed active in the Netherlands and that money launderers in these networks offer their services in a business-like manner to a varying extent. An important caveat to the current findings is that the criminal cases analyzed predominantly pertain drug-related offenses, leaving the existence and professionalism of money laundering networks in other types of crime, like large-scale fraud, a question open for future research.

The overexploitation of nature has led to anthropogenic defaunation, which results in complex socioeconomic, political and ecological consequences. Influenced by the economic growth of modernization and the interconnectedness of globalization, zoonotic diseases emerge as incalculable side effects of defaunation. By rejecting anthropocentric worldviews, this article critically examines anthropogenic defaunation and the causes and consequences of the coronavirus pandemic from a green criminological perspective.

In this study we examine whether parental monitoring remains a protective factor in the lives of emerging adults, as well as the extent to which monitoring in other settings replaces the protective role of the parents. We use data collected for the TransAM project, a longitudinal survey of 970 emerging adults (18-24 years) to examine monitoring in a range of different contexts using an instrument based on Stattin and Kerr’s parental monitoring scale (2000). Results indicate that whilst parental control plays a protective role in the first years of emerging adulthood, we find no evidence that monitoring in other settings replaces the protective role of parents. However, monitoring of the self, i.e., self-control, has an increasingly strong relationship with delinquency during emerging adulthood.

This article investigates whether cyber delinquent behaviour of school friends, other offline friends and online contacts is related to cyber delinquent behaviour of individuals, and whether this relation differs for cyber dependent, cyber enabled and traditional crime. We used both direct and indirect measures of cyber delinquency of friends. We employed data from the first wave of a large-scale study on the causes of online delinquency among Dutch juveniles (n=889; mean age=16.8 years). The results suggest that both direct and indirect measures of levels of friend delinquency were related to levels of individual cyber offending. However, indirect measures had a stronger association with individual online delinquency than direct measures. This suggests that respondents make incorrect estimates of their friends’ levels of online delinquency. Moreover, no differences were found in the strength of the relation between individual online offending and indirect measures of online offending of school friends, offline friends and online friends. This suggests that friends of different types all play an important role in individual online offending.

This article presents findings from a longitudinal study of 81 young recidivists examined over fifteen years. By the age of 25, 50 percent had desisted for at least three years. 60 percent had had no new police contacts during the last two years. Four stages could be distinguished in the desistance process. Apart from a small number of explicit persisters, all of the young adults did consciously consider whether the benefits of their criminal activities outweighed the disadvantages. With just a few exceptions, the decision to quit was not motivated by an altruistic goal, nor by extreme fear, but mainly motivated by the feeling of being too old for criminal life and by striving for a pleasant self-esteem. It is concluded that when young adult recidivists give up crime, this must be seen as an extreme and extremely late form of maturation.

In the current study it was investigated to what extent the presence or absence of victim compensation influences public judgments about punishment by the general public. Results show that whether or not the victim is awarded compensation, both in the case of physical assault and burglary, did not influence the extent to which the general public agrees with the punishment imposed by the judge. Participants do consider it important that a victim has the opportunity to apply for compensation for non-material damage suffered.

Building on prior quantitative analyses by Rovers (1999) and Rovers and Boers (2009), the present article provides a quantitative overview of 60 years Dutch Journal of Criminology, with an emphasis on the period 1999-2018. Dutch criminology is beginning to lose sight of its first generation of researchers. Males still dominate the top 25 most published authors. A social network analysis of the co-author network on the one hand reveals a significant proportion of singletons. Many of the remaining authors on the other hand, are included in one giant component that links authors directly or indirectly by co-authorship.

In the present study, the role of genetic and cultural transmission in intergenerational continuity of rule-breaking behavior (RBB) was investigated. Based on the resemblance within 3,982 Dutch twin pairs, aged 13 to 17 years, the relative importance of genetic (G), shared environmental (C), and unique environmental (E) influences on RBB was estimated. Cultural transmission, the process of passing on knowledge, norms and values, can lead to similarities within families, and forms part of the shared environment of children growing up in the same family. The authors found no evidence for shared environmental influences, and consequently no indication of a role for cultural transmission. Genetic influences explained 60 percent of the variance in rule-breaking behavior at age 13 to 17, implying that intergenerational continuity at this age is mainly driven by genetic transmission.

In this introductory chapter we provide an overview of criminological research into intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour that currently is, and has been, conducted both internationally and in the Netherlands. The most important findings of these studies are also discussed. Next, possible explanations are discussed for intergenerational transmission of crime in general, and more particularly for families that are involved in more serious and organized crime. Moreover, possible ways in which intergenerational transmission of crime can be prevented are discussed. Finally, we give some directions for future research on this topic and will introduce the contributions to this special issue.

This study (N=921) examines whether living together with a criminal parent moderates the intergenerational continuity of crime. Results are mixed, but show that the intergenerational continuity of crime decreases when the child lived together with the criminal parent for a shorter period of time. This association is most strong for children whose criminal mothers live on a large distance from them. Longitudinal fixed effects models, however, show that these results are likely the consequence of between-individual differences and therefore do not reflect causal influences on the intergenerational continuity of crime.

In The Netherlands not much attention has been paid towards the relationship between domestic violence and organized crime. In this contribution the question is addressed why this is. One of the answers is that there is doubt about the moral status of the victim of organized crime: it assumed that the victim has benefited from the proceedings of organized crime. When domestic violence and involvement with organized crime by one of the family members come together, the case becomes more complex and difficult to deal with. For that reason professionals and researchers should pay more attention to the overlap of both phenomena.

Previous research on intergenerational continuity of crime is primarily focused on transmission from fathers to children. In this article, we aim to give insight in the role of mothers in (the prevention of) continuity of organized crime. The results of our explorative study on 25 organized crime offenders based in Amsterdam and their partners and children, show that parenting skills and norms and values of mother seem to have an important role in both the intergenerational continuity of organized crime and the prevention of the transmission.

A well-established body of epidemiological research suggests that the prevalence of mental health problems (mental disorders, psychological distress, and substance use) in prisoner populations far exceeds that of non-incarcerated people in the surrounding community. Poor mental health in prisoners is associated with multiple adverse outcomes, including suicidal behaviour. In the past decade, novel data in Belgium and the Netherlands have been published on this topic, which have not been synthesized to date. The aim of the current systematic literature review was to provide an up-to-date overview of the mental health of prisoners in Belgium and the Netherlands. Based on 24 empirical studies conducted in 1997-2018, the authors conclude that people with mental health problems are overrepresented in Belgian and Dutch prisons, providing both a challenge and a public health opportunity to address the mental health care needs of a vulnerable and hard-to-engage population. Investing in the prevention and treatment of mental health problems not only benefits the prisoners concerned, but equally, society at large.

Illegal weed cultivation is increasingly perceived as an important societal problem. Most of existing research in this area focuses on the criminal organisations active on the cannabis market and the criminal profits that are gained here. The current study however focuses on the actors at the bottom of the cannabis market – the home growers – and aims at answering the following research question: what factors influence the chance of encountering an illegal weed cultivation at a certain residential address? In this study, the risk and protecting factors are taken into consideration on both the individual level (e.g. family composition and financial position of residents) and the neighbourhood level (e.g. social cohesion, physical disorganisation, level of criminality in a certain neighbourhood). In the current study, data of 401 illegal hemp cultivation sites discovered between 2011 and 2016 in homes in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, were analysed. Data from various quantitative data sources – like municipal data (BRP and data from the Social Domain) and data from the municipal neighbourhood monitors – were combined and analysed through a multilevel logistic regression. The results suggest that the likelihood of an illegal weed cultivation site is most prominently influenced by individual factors. Being married for instance seems to decrease the risk, whereas being divorced seems to increase the risk. The housing type also turns out to be of influence. On a neighbourhood level, physical disorganisation and the presence of other hemp cultivation sites in the neighbourhood are the only predictors for hemp cultivation. The results are discussed in the light of criminological theories regarding participation in crime, using the theoretical concepts motivation, opportunity, and control.

In the introductory article of this special issue on the downfall of popular heroes, some relevant aspects in relation to the general theme are explored. Who are considered to be heroes and which elements are relevant to understand the process heroes may go through when they start sliding on the slippery slope, and, eventually, fall into the abyss of disgrace? What is the role that (social) media play in the demolition of their reputation and how do heroes perceive their own downfall and respond to it? The theoretical concept that is used in this article is Howard Becker’s master status and, in particular, the notion that the master status of a fallen hero surpasses and contaminates all other statuses, previously possessed by an individual.

This article studies the development in the prison system over the period 1837-2016 in the Netherlands. It describes trends in three characteristics of the Dutch prison system: (a) the number of prisoners, (b) the number of cells, and (c) the inflow of persons from the free society. The findings are twofold. On the one hand – when examining absolute numbers – the article shows that three distinct periods can be distinguished: a period of 140 years with low stable numbers (1837-1975), four decades in which the numbers tripled (1975-2005), and a subsequent decade where the numbers halved (2005-2016). On the other hand – when examining relative numbers, i.e. per 100.000 inhabitants, and thus controlling for the growth in population – the article displays that developments in the prison system in the Netherlands between 1837-2016 can best be characterized by a long-term continuous decrease in detention.

In this introductory article we will discuss some of the recent developments in corporate crime research in the Netherlands and Belgium since 2008. In doing so, we will answer the following three questions: (1) What are the most important developments in the way research on corporate crime has been carried out? (2) What are key themes in corporate crime research? (3) What are the most important blind spots in research into corporate crime? We will conclude with some avenues for future research on corporate crime and its enforcement.

In the United States, the term disproportionate minority contact (DMC) is used to refer to the disproportionate number of minority youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Statistics on DMC in the United States put the issue on the political agenda and measures have been taken to reduce the inequality. In the Netherlands, there are some studies on the representation of ethnic minority groups in suspect statistics, but data regarding all ethnic groups at various stages of the juvenile justice chain are lacking. Due to this lack of information, DMC is not mentioned in Dutch research literature and is not a political issue. Therefore, the purpose of this article was to explore whether DMC existed in the Netherlands and whether elements of the US policy could be applied to the Dutch situation. To investigate this, the likelihood (odds ratio (OR)) was calculated for young people with a migration background to be registered and held as a suspect, to participate in an alternative punishment program (Halt) and their likelihood of incarceration. It turned out that the OR for young people with a non-Western migration background to be registered as a suspect was more than three times as high, with an OR of 5 or higher for some ethnic groups. The chances of a Halt-settlement were much lower for young people with a non-Western background. The odds of ending up in a youth prison was over six times higher for youngsters with a non-Western background compared to their Dutch native peers. For young people of Caribbean and Moroccan origin the likelihood was more than ten times higher. These results showed that DMC is present at all examined stages in the Dutch juvenile justice chain. The large overrepresentation of young people with a migration background (especially of Moroccan and Caribbean origin) shows that further research is needed in order to develop programs to reduce DMC. To establish this, it is important to register the ethnic origin of the individuals at all stages of the juvenile justice chain.

This article examines whether samples obtained through offline and online modes, within the context of juvenile delinquency research, differ from one another, when in principle the same population of youths could be reached. Youths participating through a computer-assisted web interviewing mode (CAWI) report less delinquent behaviour, fewer risk factors for delinquency, and exhibit a lower prevalence in police registration, compared to youths participating through a mixed computer-assisted personal interviewing and computer-assisted self-interviewing mode (CAPI/CASI).