In this article, we analyze which aspects of performance theory and the procedural justice-based model are explaining the trust of shopkeepers in the police and local government. Utilizing a survey of 156 shopkeepers and 94 semi-constructed interviews with shopkeepers, which are located at the South Shopping Boulevard in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), the study finds that shopkeepers have a relatively high trust in the police and local government. This is surprising because various attempts in the past 30 years to revive the high street by the government have failed to improve its bad image, as dwindling visitor numbers, poor turnover, limited range of retailers, empty shops and high crime and offence levels show only too plainly. The findings also highlight that ethnic minority respondents have more trust in local government than Dutch shopkeepers. The explanation therefor is sought in the dual frame of reference theory.

Throughout the last decade several cyclists have published memoirs in which they account for their doping use. In previous literature such autobiographical accounts have been characterized as attempts of fallen sports stars to sanitize their spoiled public image. In contrast, the analysis in this article will show that the accounts are of relevance when it comes to understanding the problem of doping in professional cycling. Their accounts break the omertà regarding doping, providing insights about the motivation and opportunity structures behind doping and how such structures are endemic to the system of professional cycling.

In this article the following question is answered. What is the modus operandi of human smugglers that smuggle Syrian migrants to the Netherlands in de period 2014-2016? Content analysis of police and Royal Marechaussee files, interviews with experts and Syrian migrants and literature research has revealed that: Syrian migrants in first instance use the South-Eastern route overseas from Turkey to Greece, for which they pay 1200-4000 euro to a smuggler, depending on the quality of the boat. From Greece some travel over land on the Balkan route. Several means of transportation are used on this route, with smugglers asking prices ranging from tens to hundreds of euros. Also they travel large parts on their own. Others are smuggled by airplane, for which they need (false) documentation. Smuggling by plane tends to be successful when departing from a small airfield, when made a detour through visa-free countries and/or a good quality (false) travel document. Prices range from 2.000 to 14.000 euros. Migrants mostly pay cash through irregular ‘banks’, a third party that plays an important facilitating role within several smuggling networks. These networks consist of several cells, with in these cells leaders and ‘employees’ and are located on migration routes and ‘hubs’ like Istanbul, Athens and Milan. The South-Eastern route is mostly in hands of Turkish criminal networks, and the continuation of the journey by airplane or through Milan over land is in hands of Syrian Dutch smugglers, the Balkan route seems to be mainly operated by individual smugglers. Within these smuggling networks the most important roles are: the recruiter, who is responsible for making contact with migrants on migration hubs or social media. The organizer/leader who coordinates activities along the smuggling route and calls employees to account. And finally the driver. Responsible for transporting the migrants and instructing them. Based on these findings several recommendations were made that can be found in this article or full research rapport.

The two editors of this issue conducted an interview with professor emeritus International law and Human Rights Theo van Boven. Van Boven was UN Special Rapporteur against Torture and he served as Director of Human Rights of the United Nations. In these and his other positions, Van Boven fought for the rights of victims of gross human rights violations and throughout his career he experienced first-hand how regimes try to cover up and deny their crimes. The interview focuses on his experiences with the former military junta in Argentina. Van Boven notes that in comparison to other regimes, the junta had developed the most sophisticated strategy of denial. Van Boven reflects on the regime’s vocabulary of denial, the political dimensions of denial and the implications for the victims. He is open and sincere about his experiences as Director of Human Rights of the United Nations and explains how victim rights, such as the right to truth, can clash with the bureaucratic and political reality within the United Nations.

In 2015, South-Korea and Japan came to a ‘final’ agreement concerning the ‘comfort women’ issue. This contribution reveals that this deal signals the next stage in a process of denial through which Japanese authorities have structurally denied the women’s’ victimhood. Taking a discourse analytical approach, the contribution investigates this historical process of denial and its implications. The analysis shows that denial takes several forms and performs different functions throughout the process. It demonstrates that denial is an interactional phenomenon, has different psychologies underlying it, and that it operates on different levels. Denial ultimately contributes to a state of continued victimization.

In the introductory article of this special issue on the language of denial, some relevant concepts in relation to denial, speech act and discourse theory are explored. Stanley Cohen’s distinction between literal, interpretative and implicatory denial is illuminated, as well as the contribution of various scholars on the performative function of language. At the end of the article the relevance of these concepts for (cultural) criminology is explained.

The article is an ethnographical study of Rotterdam’s experience with a program called ‘Community Governs’ (Buurt Bestuurt). Community Governs, a Dutch version of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS), is a community-based program which goal is to solve neighbourhood crime and disorder problems. Community commitment and involvement are a main component of this program. The article emphasizes the effects that this program had on three levels of trust (performances, intentions and skills) of the residents in police officers and municipal service agencies as partners in the fight against crime and disorder. The results indicate that a ‘positive exercise’ of liberty through political participation of civilians is difficult to realise in poor, inner city, neighbourhoods.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) within Dutch civil society provide material and immaterial assistance to unauthorized migrants in the Netherlands. Based on long-term qualitative fieldwork in the life worlds of unauthorized migrants, the authors describe how the migrants experience these NGOs as a safe haven where they feel at home and secure for the risks of apprehension and deportation. We argue that these safe havens are also beneficial for the society at large. These NGOs contribute to preventing unauthorized migrants from sleeping in public places and employing illegitimate survival strategies. In addition, the NGOs’ empowerment of these migrants is advantageous for their willingness to access healthcare and employ legal rights. Recent attempts of the Dutch government to restrict the number of these NGOs, lead amongst other things to NGOs who are increasingly focusing on the unauthorized migrants’ return. We argue that these governmental efforts of controlling unauthorized migration through NGOs, will result in unauthorized migrants loosing trust in these safe havens. Ultimately, this governmental control through NGOs will have a negative impact on feelings of security in the society at large as it fundamentally diminishes the significance of these NGOs in civil society for unauthorized migrants without offering an alternative.

Recently, we conducted a study on drug trafficking criminal networks in a Dutch town. In this article, we examine the results of this study by assessing the development of criminal networks and the way in which individuals get involved with these networks. Our analysis of the qualitative data focuses on three central empirical findings derived from earlier (mainly Dutch) research on criminal networks. A first outcome of earlier studies was that criminal networks are not based on a specific kind of crime and therefore do not resemble goal driven companies. Our fieldwork suggests, however, that the networks seemed less ‘flat’ and more goal driven than previously assumed. Second, earlier studies conclude that the structure of social opportunities facilitates a subjects’ inclination towards committing crime. Our study seems to confirm this finding: social pressure from peers and family is strong and encourages involvement in drug trafficking networks. Finally, earlier research pointed out that involvement in criminal networks was not a result of intentional recruitment. In our study we found – anecdotic – evidence of the opposite. We found evidence that suggests that most youth criminals are not ‘persisters’, however, mobs may serve as gateways to organised crime.

Social network analysis (SNA) has taken its place in the field of criminology, although among Dutch criminologists the emphasis remains on conceptual contributions. Meanwhile, the world of criminal investigation and intelligence has witnessed the development of a blossoming SNA-practice. The emergence of big data makes SNA an indispensable tool to exploit the oceans of data in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, when it comes to employing SNA, academia and the investigations and intelligence domains remain separated. While Dutch analysts adopt scientific ideas and concepts, they rarely contribute to the body of literature; confidential SNA reports remain inaccessible. Shedding light on over forty SNA related internal police studies, this article bridges the gap between Dutch academic criminologists and ‘pracademics’ in law enforcement.

Both in punishment theory and sentencing practices, the subjective sentence severity is an important yet neglected area of research. This paper aims to explain differences between inmates in their subjective severity of imprisonment and to contemplate these against the background of important sentencing goals and sentencing principles. Two models commonly used to explain adjustment to prison life were applied: the import and deprivation model. Data from the Prison Project, collected among Dutch inmates staying in pretrial detention, reveal that both import and deprivation characteristics are related to the subjective severity of imprisonment. No support is found for a moderation effect of personality.

In the introduction of the special issue of the Journal on Crime & Culture on ‘Resistance’, the editors focus on the theoretical history of the concept of resistance in the field of Criminology. Against the background of the Birmingham School and the themes and ideas of Critical Criminology, the authors argue that new issues are rebelled against, and new styles and rituals become en vogue. The street fighting man on the barricades is no longer the obvious icon, and resistance is not per se intergenerational, interclass or a confrontation between minorities and mainstream culture. Resistance may have epidemic proportions as the Arabic Spring. Movements like Occupy or WikiLeaks operate across borders, but resistance also includes subtle transgressions within organizations.

The politization of the concept of genocide by Western states has been severely criticised, because it has led to an impunity for genocidal crimes. In certain instances however, such criticism has contributed to the dynamic of victimization, instead of resisting it. The article discusses how Professor Edward S. Herman and journalist David Peterson’s staunch criticism of the politics of genocide amounts to a brazen denial of the genocide against the Tutsi which recycles much of the extremist discourse of the former Rwandan authorities that were implicated in genocide. In this case Herman and Peterson’s resistance against the politics of genocide has profound implications, several of which the article will address.

Human trafficking means exploitation; human smuggling is associated with illegal labour and a connection with exploitation is absent. Where a victim of human trafficking can appeal for legal protection, a smuggled migrant (illegally residing or with vulnerable legal status) overall has little rights because of the formal absence of the aspects of exploitation and coercion in human smuggling. In this article, the empirical analysis based on file analysis demonstrates that in several files of cases framed as human smuggling indications are found for exploitation of migrants, although this has not been recognised as such. Theoretically the authors tie this to the trend of crimmigration. Measures designed to combat human trafficking and smuggling are often concentrated on (criminal) law enforcement and criminal punishment, to the detriment of a human rights-based approach. The tension between immigration policy and the combat against human trafficking deserves more attention.

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.