This contribution seeks to bring together three themes in a descriptive and exploratory manner: (a) community service orders, (b) traffic offences and (c) restorative justice; the Dutch situation is central. To this end, the Dutch legal regulation regarding community service orders is first explained. Attention is also paid to existing empirical research on the effectiveness of community service orders in terms of reduction of recidivism (section 2). Furthermore, the sanctioning of traffic offences is discussed as well as the consequences for this of the current bill that seeks to sharpen criminal liability for serious traffic offences (section 3). Subsequently, it is examined which restorative justice provisions or modalities are available and how restorative community service orders are and can be designed (section 4). Finally, I describe my ideal when it comes to the sanctioning of traffic offences in the form of a continuum in which a special role is reserved for restorative community service orders (section 5). The contribution ends with a conclusion (section 6).

This article focuses on the ways the NVU, Pegida and Voorpost - three far-right groups from the Netherlands - make use of social media platforms in the year 2017. Our results show that these extreme right-wing groups use social media to spread their ideology, to construct a group identity, and to call for (democratic) forms of resistances. In addition, our findings illustrate that these far-right groups seem to adjust to their digital surroundings: they do not change or conceal their extremist ideas, but rather manage their online content to ensure that their ideologies can be disseminated through social media.

In our 2017 report “Profielen van outlaw bikers and outlawbiker clubs” we concluded, “Dutch members of outlaw motorcycle gangs disproportionally frequently have a history criminal justice contacts”. The attorney representing the Hells Angels in the civil law suit filed by the Dutch public prosecutor requesting a civil ban of the Hells Angels, after consulting an expert methodologist, challenged this conclusion due to the possibility of type 2 and type 1 errors in constructing our sample from a police gang database. Here we calculate the proportion of convicted Hells Angels members under different levels of potential bias resulting from these errors. We find that a realistic estimate of the proportion of convicted individuals among the Dutch Hells Angels membership is between 58-96%, which, at a minimum, is roughly twice that in an age-matched population of male motorcyclists who are not members of an outlaw motorcycle club.

This study describes the trend in victimization of homicide in the Netherlands in the period 1992-2016. Using data from the Dutch Homicide Monitor, the findings show that the homicide rate has been falling since the 1990s. This decrease is the greatest among male and female victims between the ages 20 and 39. This findings emphasize the importance of shifting the discussion about the general homicide drop to an in-depth analysis of gender and age of victims of homicide.

Recent studies show that neurocognitive functioning of people within the criminal justice system might be relevant for judicial intervention and reintegration programs, but the use of this information is hindered by – among other things – a lack of appropriate norm scores for neuropsychological tests. A total of 272 detainees completed the d2 attention and concentration test. This article shows that for the d2 attention and concentration test, the already available norm scores are not appropriate for the use within the criminal justice system. New norm scores for Dutch detainees are provided, based on outcomes of a regression based norm procedure. These norm scores are made freely available.

Criminologists have by and large sought to explain crime by the deficiencies people may have. It took till the 1970s until the idea that crime can also be caused by structural power inequalities got an actual name in criminology: crimes of the powerful. Starting with the works of Willem Bonger and Edward Ross in the early 20^th century, the author analyses how critical criminologists like Frank Pearce introduced the term ‘crimes of the powerful’ in the 1970s and how this concept was subsequently applied to gender- and racial inequalities, state crime, corruption et cetera, whilst pointing at the topical relevance of using a lens of ‘crimes of the powerful’ as a sensitising concept to analyse present-day problems, ranging from sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church to the banking sector or indeed the expropriation of indigenous lands in the Amazon by soy-farmers and timber traders.

For social scientists undertaking critical research on elites in organisational contexts securing access is a challenging exercise that may rely on the use of several access strategies over extended periods. This process is further complicated by the existence of research ethics frameworks that establish boundaries to access strategies, posing dilemmas on how to best balance access needs with a commitment to ethical practices. This article focuses on such dilemmas – or the ‘ethics of access’ – through a reflection on PhD fieldwork during 2016-2017 in Luxembourg spent researching the European Investment Bank. The paper will conclude by calling for an overhaul of existing frameworks in order to foster more research on elites.

Attempting to understand the Greek narrative of crisis, this paper examines the most prominent forms of violence that emerged in the period of acute economic recession and political upheaval in Greece namely structural, institutional and anti-institutional violence. This paper aims to highlight existing theoretical gaps and avoid common fallacies of the current body of knowledge. In contrast to some of the more common features of the discussion on violence, this note sets out to: a) acknowledge that violence is not necessarily a physical act, b) acknowledge that the outcomes of violence performances might not be physical either, c) specify and adequately distinguish agency and structural dynamics and d) address the cultural and contextual aspects of violence. Vital to this endeavor is to acknowledge, identify and understand the interactive relation between different forms of violence that emerge during the same period of time in a context in which conflict escalates.

Multi-national corporations are increasingly facing attention and disapproval by different actors, including authorities, public and (non-) commercial organizations. Digital globalization and especially social media as a low-cost, highly interactive and multidirectional platform shape a unique context for this rising attention. In the literature, much attention has been devoted to top-down approaches and strategies that corporations use to avoid stigmatization and sanctioning of their behaviour. Reactions to corporate harm are, however, seldom researched from a labelling perspective. As a result, corporations are not considered as objects towards whom labelling is targeted but rather as actors who hamper such processes and who, as moral entrepreneurs, influence which behaviour is labelled deviant. Based on theoretical analysis of literature and case studies, this article will discuss how the process of labelling has changed in light of the digitalized, late-modern society and consequently, how the process should be revisited to be applicable for corporate deviance. Given a diversification of moral entrepreneurs and increasingly dependency of labelling and meaning-making on the online sphere, two new forms of labelling are introduced that specifically target institutions; that is bottom-up and horizontal labelling.

Contrary to its allies in other countries, the sex industry decriminalization movement in New Zealand, embodied by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC), achieved its goal in 2003. This article explores the reform of the sex industry policy in this country on the basis of a Social Movement Concept. Apart from the specific New Zealand culture, particularly the interaction between three social political aspects – awareness, political opportunities, and a strong social movement organisation – can be identified as crucial factors in realizing a decriminalized sex industry environment. The enactment of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 meant a unique and huge success for a small sex workers movement.

This contribution reflects on the criminological meaning of the still ongoing trend of digitalisation. What does this mean for crime as a phenomenon and for the explanation of criminal behaviour? Not only did we see the emergence of new types of offending, also the context of crime has changed. In principle, the underlying explanatory processes can remain the same, but their application in the online world is complex and deserves further attention. Online social interactions are not only important for online crime, but also for traditional offenses. However, systematic research on how this actually takes place is scarce.

If, as criminologists, we really want to contribute to solutions for the great challenges of our time, we should be…surfing more. In a dynamic environment full of contradictions, we should be constantly in motion, moving left and right between different theoretical-normative perspectives as well as between methodological perspectives. This paper clarifies that surfing movement with some illustrations. It then proposes three goals for a criminological research agenda that should help us address the great challenges: actual (as opposed to superficial) relevance for practice, causal ambitions and multidisciplinarity. The paper concludes with some reflections about the organization and funding of criminological research.

Two developments are discussed that have a significant influence on the scope and content of the penology of the future, but otherwise have little to do with each other: The expansion of the sentencing field has resulted in a completely fluid research field. However, the important questions of penology can only be answered by integrally mapping and analyzing that sentencing field. For that reason, penology should radically free itself of the limitation of its field of research to the penal sanction. Ongoing insight into the functioning of the brain and the predictability of behavior on the basis of algorithms shine a different light on the portraits of mankind on which we base punishment. It also exposes a range of new possibilities to influence behavior and prevent criminal behavior. It is also part of the research field of penology to question which of those possibilities we want to use and under which conditions.

In this contribution, I describe several key developments that have been fundamental to the development of criminology in the past 50 years. Next, I sketch the contours of several more recent developments, paying particular attention to three technologies, virtual reality, smartphones and wearables that will leave their imprint on the field. These developments will also imply a shift from the study of criminality to researching criminal behaviour.

Scenario techniques allow for dynamic explorations of possible futures. With the uncertainties about interdisciplinarity and the public role of criminology four scenarios for criminology in 2040 are presented. Crime Science and Criminal Policy describe situations which combine a strong public role for criminology to a low and high level of interdisciplinarity. Da Vinci and Theoretical Criminology portray futures with a limited public role for criminology and a high and low level of interdisciplinarity.

Forensic psychiatric treatment plays a mayor role in keeping society safe. However, the expectations about what can be achieved with forensic treatment do not seem to be realistic. This complicates the chances of a successful re-socialization. It is foreseen that the number of patients will increase significantly in the upcoming years.
More effective treatment programs and instruments for risk assessment are needed. For this, the causal relationship between psychopathology and delinquency must be better understood. This requires more criminological research.

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.

About half (54%) of Dutch mental health care have patients who radicalize. This delivery room for radical losers deserves more attention. The GGZ will then have to emerge from the stalled discourse, that radicalization is not a psychiatric disorder. An important breeding ground for these and other ‘delivery rooms’ are apart from factors like social and psychological influences, and grievances about social, economic and health inequalities (Bhui et al., 2014), the wars that are initiated annually by the United States from 1798, with or without the help of the United Kingdom, the European Union and therefore the Netherlands. This article argues that ‘fire should not be fired with fire’. It is argued for the implementation of Activism of Hope (Lleshi, 2018) with its own grandfathers, such as Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Finally, an action perspective for all young people in the tumultuous phase of adolescence is proposed for education- and care institutions.

Loïc Wacquant conducted ethnographic research in the ghetto of Chicago and describes the route to social mobility that black boxers try to follow as they train in the gym and build body capital. Based on similar research methods, this article compares the black boxers to two episodes of kickboxing in Amsterdam. Wacquant is not hopeful when it comes to social mobility of the boxers, as he sees their boxing careers as confirmation of their low position in society. In the first Dutch episode, kickboxers manage to combine body work in the gym with working in the nightlife economy. They make money but are unaware of the danger of getting involved in criminal activities, and a number of fighters end up in prison or even dead. Currently, kickboxing is very popular with young Moroccans. Having seen what went wrong in the previous episode, Moroccan trainers keep a close watch on their pupils, and make sure they realize that what happens outside and after kickboxing is what really matters.