In the context of criminal investigations police and prosecution can appeal to the public for information to further their case. This decision cannot be taken lightly and requires a balancing exercise between the rights of the suspect (and other people involved), specifically the right to privacy, the interest of criminal investigations, such as the identification of the suspect or witnesses, and public pressure to fight crime.
In the current digital society, the prosecutor can choose between a wide range of (new) media and modes of communication to ask for information. Next to wanted notices on paper posters and broadcasts on television, appeals for information are published on websites, social media platforms, apps and digital screens. Citizens can modify and share these appeals and they can comment on them. This necessitates careful consideration by the prosecutor on whether and how to appeal for information. After all, these appeals could lead to DIY-policing or online vigilantism (digilantism), leading to infringements on the right to privacy and even possibly to misidentification of suspects.
This article contributes to the continuing debate. We describe the legal framework the prosecution has to take into account in such cases. The importance of a considered decision is illustrated by three cases in which judicial authorities appealed to the public for help in the criminal investigations, resulting in massive (media) attention and consequently affecting the eventual criminal case against the defendants. In two of these cases the prosecutorial decision to involve the public’s help resulted in a violation of the defendants’ rights to privacy and consequently had to be remedied by the court. Both cases led to social, legal and political debate about the balance between privacy and crime control.

Eyetracking enabled the authors to study eye movements of 23 participants who looked at crime scene photographs. The authors measured the emotions elicited by the photographs, as well as perceptions of seriousness and the sentence that participants would give the perpetrator of the crime. Also, individual differences in disgust sensitivity were taken into account. Results show a positive relationship between disgust sensitivity and both the proportion of fixations as well as the number of fixations on gruesome aspects of the photos (the blood and the wound), emotion ratings of the photographs, perceptions of seriousness, and the sentence given. Implications, limitations, and future directions of the research are discussed.

The recent exhibition The Crime Was Almost Perfect in the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, curated by Cristina Ricupero, focused on the dynamic relation between art (aesthetics) and crime (ethics). The review discusses the representations of crime in (some of) the exhibited art works and analyzes the ways in which the artists play with their (conflicting) meanings, ambivalences and ambiguities.

Criminological research on perceptions and behavior in an environmental context, scarcely uses virtual environments. Such virtual environments are available on the Internet or can be created. They can be presented to research participants either online or in a laboratory setting. This article gives a brief overview of criminological studies employing a virtual environment and describes a case study that used a virtual environment in order to investigate disorder. Despite the pitfalls, there are certainly possibilities for (criminological) research in virtual environments. The spatial context provided by a virtual environment, seems suitable for research in environmental criminology in particular.

Graffiti has been linked in empirical studies to disorder, fear of crime, avoidance behavior, vandalism and delinquency. In most of those studies, graffiti is treated as an abstract and uniform concept: no distinctions are made between one graffiti or another. Policies based on this assumption hold a zero tolerance approach, meaning all graffiti is deemed undesirable and is or should be removed. This has been criticized by several (theoretical) studies. On the other hand however, ethnographic studies present graffiti as a multifaceted phenomenon, serving as a means of communication, resistance and protest or as an art form. The current study investigates the assumption that graffiti is perceived as a homogeneous and undesirable environmental feature. This article examines whether graffiti is actually perceived uniformly by Dutch citizens, and if not how people distinguish between different graffiti; which types of graffiti are perceived as disorder and whether different types of people exist based on their attitudes towards graffiti. An extensive questionnaire was designed, based on a thorough analysis of the literature and empirical pilot studies. A nationally representative sample responded to general questions with respect to graffiti and judged eighteen specific examples of graffiti on a reliable scale that measured perceived disorder. Results indicate that people vary enormously in their ideas and attitudes. Also, not every graffiti is the same, meaning graffiti is not a homogeneous, uniform phenomenon. Both type of graffiti and the location on which the graffiti is situated relate to the degree of perceived disorder. For example, tags, small scribbles, were considered a public nuisance more than pieces, large colorful images. Also, graffiti on a house or car is perceived much more as disorder than graffiti in a skatepark. The diversity in views necessitates a normative

Rape drugs (or drink spiking) discourse reflects gender stereotypes in a much more differentiated way than previous studies suppose. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of news items and online discussions proved stereotypes of ideal female victims and male perpetrators to be most prominent in news media. Postings to online bulletin boards were more skeptical about the alleged victims’ innocence and truthfulness. Studies in this area that focus on news media and institutional discourse overestimate the predominance of the ideal victim stereotype. In order to correct this bias, the authors urge criminologists to be more attentive to the relevance and power of informal crime stories and discussions, particularly those appearing in social media.