Traditionally, the mayor has an important role as a citizen’s father and as a maintainer of public order. In the context of the so-called ‘undermining’ criminality, the mayor has been increasingly empowered with new legal instruments to combat undermining criminality. Some mayors see themselves as a sheriff. However, in the Dutch Municipal Act, the mayor only has a task of maintaining the public order. How does this task relate to combating undermining criminality? What is the role of the mayor in the combat of undermining criminality? Nowadays, there is no legal basis in the Dutch Municipal Act to equip the mayor with crime-fighting duties. This article proposes to equip the mayor with a legal duty as a crime fighter.

Criminology has traditionally focused on urban areas where crime visibly concentrates. However, since the 1990s, attention for ‘rural criminology’ has steadily increased. First, rural areas are confronted with partly different and less visible crime problems, such as environmental crimes. Second, public actors such as enforcement and other agencies are less present and ‘available’ in rural areas, and people on average trust the government less to provide support when necessary. This chronicle presents an overview of international and Dutch research in the context of rural criminology. The paper addresses cultural differences between urban and rural areas, high-volume crimes, gender-related violence, alcohol and drug abuse, environmental crime, and enforcement in rural areas.

The social role of criminals in local communities has so far received relatively little systematic academic attention. This applies more specifically to their involvement in philanthropic activities. This paper describes and analyses the role of dubious sponsors particularly in Dutch amateur football. Although it is difficult to estimate the scope of the problem, results indicate that criminal sponsorship is not incidental. It mainly concerns corporate criminals, persons involved in drug crimes and outlaw motorcycle gangs. The main goal is to enhance their public image. In most cases, their involvement in crimes or regulatory offenses is difficult to assess without a doubt, which complicates preventative measures. Our analysis shows several interacting factors which increase clubs’ vulnerability to criminal infiltration: setting overambitious sportive goals; dependence on volunteers and a lack of formal integrity policies and internal compliance mechanisms; financial problems; and external pressures associated with the club’s role as the ‘pride’ of the city, the village or the neighbourhood.

The lifeblood of contemporary consumer capitalism is ever-growing and accelerating human needs for new consumer goods and services. Needs that remain unsatisfied on the one hand but defy the carrying capacity of planet Earth on the other. Anything but a win-win situation. Although excess harms, the infrastructure of consumption pays full service to perpetuate and cultivate the ‘more and faster’ orientation of today’s consumers. It is believed that we can cope with excess by taking efficiency measures and paying attention to recycling and refurbishing. This article, however, points out that there is need to rethink consumption and reconsider prevalent orientations dedicated to excess consumption more fundamentally.

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.

This contribution reports about a research in a medium-sized municipality on the possibilities of giving municipalities an instrument to determine at the earliest possible stage which neighborhoods are at (increased) risk of exposure to organized crime and its consequences. We are searching for indicators to measure that exposure to give direction to preventive measures. Our focus is on the erosion of structures and foundations of society as a result of activities of organized crime, eventually resulting in the infringement of the rule of law. It is therefore not about the phenomenon of organized crime itself, but about its effects on society. This requires clarification and measurability of the concept. In this first exploration, we focus on the following five manifestations of the effect of organized crime: The emergence of a subculture: not recognizing government authority; the emergence of takeover of power in the neighborhood; the emergence of vulnerable groups of citizens; the creation of the image: crime pays off; and the emergence of unfair competition.

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.

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.

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.

The present article examines the financial life of 131 jihadi travellers (JTs), also known as foreign terrorist fighters, from the Netherlands. For the purpose of the research, access was acquired to all their banking transactions in the year preceding their departure: over 60,000 transactions in total. Their income from work or employment, various forms of social assistance, student grants, and other income or expenditure were examined. The data provided a good picture of their financial independence, i.e., the extent to which they were capable of making their own living or needed to claim assistance from the authorities. The analysis shows that it is highly exceptional for Dutch JTs to be financially independent. Only 5 percent have sufficient income from work or employment without making any claims on the government for financial assistance, and are free of mounting debts. The low score can for a large part be explained by the fact that almost half of the JTs are under 23 years of age and/or receive a student grant. Their financial picture largely resembles ordinary students. Older JTs (over 22 years of age, and not having received a student grant for at least one year) underperform, however. Only 9 percent are financially independent. Financial support could perhaps be used to monitor or steer recipients’ role in society.

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.

Criminology traditionally focuses on the human experience. However, several criminologists have seriously criticized this anthropocentric perspective. In their view from a criminological perspective humans and other than human animals should be given equal attention. Although they advocate a non-speciesist criminology, they are not trying to fundamentally change criminology as we know it. Instead, their appeal is to not consider other than human creatures as passive objects and solely from the perspective of their usefulness for humans. Yet, this objective poses substantial methodological challenges to criminologists.