Although risk profiling can by no means be considered as a ‘new’ crime prevention tool, its application has gained popularity over the years. Both in the screening of asylum seekers, in border control at airports (e.g. behavioural profiling or the use of risk profiles in the European Passenger Information Unit) and in the designation of hotspots at the local level (e.g. the Crime Anticipation System), attempts are now being made to identify persons with criminal intentions more often on the basis of ordinal risk assessment tools. This sudden increase in popularity is not remarkable, since random police patrols or undirected security checks have long been shown to have negligible impact on crime reduction. Risk profiles, on the other hand, have a certain potential for shaping more effectively the interventions by law enforcement authorities at border crossing points. Nevertheless, the use of such profiles also raises some pertinent questions. It is precisely in the light of this ambivalence that the present theoretical contribution will consider the pitfalls and success factors of risk profiling during border checks, in order to determine when one can speak of ‘risk profiling’ and when the concept of ‘risky profiling’ must be used.

The 20th anniversary of this journal is a good reason to glance back at developments with restorative justice for children and young people. Can we say that restorative youth justice has become mature? Some core events and articles about developments in Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere are discussed, paying attention to young suspects as well as victims. Subsequently, the embedding of restorative justice in youth laws is discussed. Finally, the article focuses on the question what should be done to improve the implementation into an effective, child friendly and ‘rights based’ youth sanction model.

This paper focuses on the practice of youth justice (termed ‘youth protection’ in Belgium) in which professional actors ascribe deviant behaviour of youngsters to different cultural and migration backgrounds. Intra-European Roma migrants and refugees from the Northern Caucasus in Belgium are chosen as case studies. Discourse analysis of 55 youth court files and 41 expert interviews with professional actors show that deviant behaviour of these young people is explained in different manners. Two discourses are identified: ‘criminal vagabonds’ and ‘war torn children’. These discourses and their effects in practice differ tremendously for both groups. The broader discussion this article touches upon is the selective inclusion and exclusion in the institutions of formal social control, through social practices of culturalisation.

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.

This article describes the context of this thematic issue on restorative practices in schools. In 2016, KU Leuven performed an explorative research named “Field Glasses”. The research dealt with similarities and differences between restorative justice in the penal context on the one hand, and the domains of community building, adult education and schools on the other hand (Deboeck e.a., 2017). Literature has been studied and actors of both practice and policy-making have been interviewed. This article describes some of the main findings with regard to restorative practices and schools.

Some believe that the credibility of restorative justice can be increased if more attention is given to the quality of the mediator, as well as methods to select people with the right profile or by training. At first glance this seems a legitimate aim: mediation services should offer quality. Reflecting on practical experience and research into mediation between offenders and victims in Flanders, the author problematizes these assumptions. The quest for tangible quality to ensure ‘credibility’ refers to a neo-liberal approach aimed at reducing risks and promoting the client’s satisfaction. In this article the author confronts the apolitical approach of client satisfaction with alternative ideas about (restorative) justice. Ideally, the mediator is critical of established (legal) authorities and professional expertise. Mediation is political in nature, even if the mediator relies on neutrality. The mediator must be aware of his – inevitable – political stance and should be ready to be interrogated on this matter.

In this article the author gives insight in the tasks of a lawyer in mediation for minors. In the first part of his contribution he describes the legal framework, giving an overview of all relevant existing national and international legislation on children’s rights. Subsequently he describes the different tasks a lawyer has to attend in all stages of the mediation.

This article studies the position of young victims in restorative justice and mediation. First we study the literature, which shows that although young victims may have specific needs, their position within restorative justice remains underexposed. Therefore, we have set up a small explorative study in the beginning of 2015. Through nine interviews with young victims who have gone through a mediation process in Flanders, we sought to answer three central questions. The article discusses whether these victims were satisfied with the mediation process, whether they could have a say in the process and what the importance was of having support persons throughout the mediation process.
We found that the participation of the parents does influence the mediation process, since the parents are the main support persons for the young victim. Other support people are seldom present in the process, although some victims wanted the school or a friend to participate. Most of the young victims found they had a say in the process, but the presence of the parents could be an impediment in that regard. Young victims interviewed were generally satisfied with the mediator and mediation process, but not always with the outcome of the mediation. Ensuring that these young victims really get a say in the process proved to be a point of attention for practice.

Restorative justice as well as restorative justice practices have mainly been researched from judicial and criminologist perspectives, whereas social work has been remarkably silent in the restorative justice debate. As a consequence, the role of social work in the restorative justice field remains largely unexplored. In this article we report the findings of two focus groups conducted with mediators working in juvenile and adult mediation practices in Flanders to gain more insight into how mediators perceive their role and to analyse to what extent they refer to the individual and structural dimension of victim-offender mediation.

La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995) shows practices of resistance of youngsters in public space. Next to the traditional milieus of socialisation – at home, at school or in institutionalised leisure facilities – youngsters demand their ‘place’ in public space. In doing so, they partly privatise public space (‘parochial space’). In this article we argue that transgressive behaviour of youngsters should be conceptualised as both a side-effect of growing up and socialisation, and as resistance against adult domination, especially in public space. As such, hanging around is cause and effect of control and criminalisation.

Comparing the developments in the Netherlands with those in Belgium the authors find important differences relating to the questions pertinent to implementation. Experiments have also been done in the Netherlands and their evaluations showed positive results, but there were different models which were not clearly – or not at all – related to the traditional criminal justice process. They all were lacking the formal collaboration with the courts, that was seen in Belgium. There has been no form of central direction and no important influence from the academic world and the various projects have officially been replaced in 2006 by a national policy of implementing ‘victim-offendertalks’. These talks have their merits and are appreciated by victims and offenders, but they do not amount to mediation in a restorative style, since restorative agreements are not allowed to result. Nevertheless, there are a number of indications that restorative justice practices could still become recognized and accepted. Staff of the police, the public prosecutors office and judges are interested and new experiments are beginning. The new development of local ‘veiligheidshuizen’ (‘front offices for safety’) offers a promising setting for interagency co-operation and conferencing with citizens in trouble and conflict. The conferencing-model has gained broad acceptance in the context of juvenile care and may continue to inspire justice personnel. In process now is the foundation of a new restorative justice network, called ‘Restorative Justice Netherlands’.

The author, reflecting upon both Bouverne-De Bie & Roose and Walgrave, deplores to some degree the fact that the Journal for Restorative Justice, from its foundation, has narrowed its focus and scope by making it a priority to attempt to influence the criminal justice system. Most of the conflicts and troubles between citizens never reach the criminal agencies and are dealt with by other methods, such as methods of social work, without approaching the police. The potential scope for influencing conflict-behavior is therefore immensely greater outside the sphere of the criminal law.