The Financial Action Task Force reported that money launderers may operate in professional money laundering networks. Whether such money laundering networks operate in the Netherlands is unclear. In this article the authors therefore explore whether professional money launderers collaborate in network structures and the business-like manner in which they offer their services. Business-like refers to their involvement in multiple cases, the amount of repeat customers, and excludes family relations. The research is based on Dutch police registrations of 236 professional money launderers. Our results suggest that professional money laundering networks are indeed active in the Netherlands and that money launderers in these networks offer their services in a business-like manner to a varying extent. An important caveat to the current findings is that the criminal cases analyzed predominantly pertain drug-related offenses, leaving the existence and professionalism of money laundering networks in other types of crime, like large-scale fraud, a question open for future research.

The current study investigates the relationship between the Dark Triad personality traits (consisting of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism) and three different forms of aggression: online aggression, overt aggression and relational aggression. The sample consisted of 1,051 adolescents between 12 and 16 years old. Results show that psychopathy and Machiavellianism are positive predictors of the three forms of aggression, while narcissism is a positive predictor of online aggression only.

The aim of this study was to investigate the scale and network structure of prostitution in the northern provinces of the Netherlands. This study tries to answer three research questions – using a social network analysis – about (1) the size of the prostitution network, (2) the formation of subgroups, and (3) key positions within the networks. The findings show that approximately two thirds of the researched prostitution networks is still unregistered, while there are indications that the outcome of the estimate is in line with the actual situation. Furthermore, results show that prostitutes have a tendency to form subgroups on the basis of the same nationality, which indicates that homophily plays a role in the formation of subgroups. The identification of the actors who occupy key positions in the network were based on the key player problem (KPP). A striking finding was that organizers of prostitution (such as pimps) did not have a central position in the networks. These findings provide insight into the way in which prostitution is registered, and provide points of departure for interventions to disrupt the network or, on the contrary, to strengthen it.

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.

In this study we examine whether parental monitoring remains a protective factor in the lives of emerging adults, as well as the extent to which monitoring in other settings replaces the protective role of the parents. We use data collected for the TransAM project, a longitudinal survey of 970 emerging adults (18-24 years) to examine monitoring in a range of different contexts using an instrument based on Stattin and Kerr’s parental monitoring scale (2000). Results indicate that whilst parental control plays a protective role in the first years of emerging adulthood, we find no evidence that monitoring in other settings replaces the protective role of parents. However, monitoring of the self, i.e., self-control, has an increasingly strong relationship with delinquency during emerging adulthood.

A recent rehabilitation theory, the ‘Good Lives Model’ (GLM), states that interventions that work towards a higher well-being can reduce recidivism risk more sustainably by promising a happier, pro-social life, rather than just a less harmful one. Although the GLM theory appears promising, limited empirical research has examined its underlying assumptions, applicability and its effectiveness. Research into the GLM with youth is even more limited. Therefore, in the current study, we investigate the main etiological assumptions of the GLM in a large group of adolescents between 14 and 18 years old from the general population (N=5.776), by means of self-report survey data on well-being, primary human goods and delinquency. The results show that a lower subjective global well-being is related to delinquent behavior. Especially the primary human goods of relatedness and working towards a financially stable future appear to be important goals for interventions aimed at rehabilitation of juvenile offenders.

The aim of this study was to provide more insight in prevalence and aetiology of juvenile frequent offending, employing police registered data as well as self-report information. We combined data about 519 youths that participated in a self-report study in the region of The Hague with police register data (the HKS system) from the police unit of The Hague. The results indicate that a substantial part of youths that report a large amount of offenses themselves are not formally known as ‘juvenile frequent offender’. Causal factors derived from four major criminological theories can be found in a more pronounced way among juvenile frequent offenders than among youths that incidentally commit offenses. In general, there are similarities between the characteristics of juvenile frequent offenders defined by police register data and those defined by self-reports, but, on average, frequent offenders that are known by the police spend more time unstructured socializing with friends. We conclude that research using the method of self-report is well capable to find juvenile frequent offenders, and that this method also leads to useful information about the causes of their delinquent behaviour.

This article investigates whether cyber delinquent behaviour of school friends, other offline friends and online contacts is related to cyber delinquent behaviour of individuals, and whether this relation differs for cyber dependent, cyber enabled and traditional crime. We used both direct and indirect measures of cyber delinquency of friends. We employed data from the first wave of a large-scale study on the causes of online delinquency among Dutch juveniles (n=889; mean age=16.8 years). The results suggest that both direct and indirect measures of levels of friend delinquency were related to levels of individual cyber offending. However, indirect measures had a stronger association with individual online delinquency than direct measures. This suggests that respondents make incorrect estimates of their friends’ levels of online delinquency. Moreover, no differences were found in the strength of the relation between individual online offending and indirect measures of online offending of school friends, offline friends and online friends. This suggests that friends of different types all play an important role in individual online offending.

Young people’s delinquent behavior remains a social problem of concern to parents, local residents, teachers, police officers and administrators. With respect to effective interventions, the dominant focus is on ‘what works’. Relatively little is known about ‘who works’. In this study, based on a survey of 679 vmbo-pupils, it was investigated to what extent receiving ‘sternness with love’ from a professional may contribute to mitigating delinquency. For this research, unique graphically supported measuring instruments were developed that enable participants of the target group – including those who suffer from mild intellectual disabilities – to independently fill out the questionnaire. The results based on regression analyses suggest that there is no support for the supposed contribution of the interaction between sternness and love or of the three-way interaction between delinquent friends, sternness and love in explaining the variance of delinquent behavior. The results further show that having delinquent friends is related to participants’ delinquency. The results of these analyses also suggest that the relevant professional’s approach with ‘sternness’ or with ‘love’ moderates the relationship between delinquent friends and committing theft.

Given that the social life of youngsters develops more and more online, attention for cybercrime has grown as well. However, no Flemish data is available yet. This study uses data from two representative samples of the Flemish youth to research the prevalence and risk profiles of on- and offline crime. Compared to offline crime, online crime is relatively limited. In addition, results showed that online offenders had the least severe risk profile, while offenders of both on- and offline delinquency had the most severe profile. For victimization, it appeared that it is important to consider individual types of offences, since complex differences were found between various crime types. These results indicate a limited, but not ignorable, occurrence of online crime, and a difference in risk profiles for offline and online crime.

Studies investigating peer influence on risk behaviors, such as antisocial behavior and substance abuse, mostly study the amount of change in which adolescents adapt their risk behavior to become more similar to their friends. Onset of risk behavior, changing form having no experience to having any experience with risk behavior, has been studies far less. This study investigates friends’ influence on the onset of risk behavior and their influence in changes in risk behavior. Hypotheses were tested using SNARE (Social Network Analysis of Risk behavior in Early adolescence) data (N=1.144), containing information on risk behavior (i.e. antisocial behavior, alcohol use, and tobacco use) and friendship networks at three timepoints during the first year of secondary education (M_age= 12.7; SD=0.47). Analyses, using longitudinal social network analysis (RSIENA), showed that although adolescents adapt their risk behavior to become more similar to their friends, they are not influence in by their friends in the onset of risk behavior. These findings suggest s more nuanced role of friends in the onset of risk behavior. Interventions aiming at friends might benefit from differentiating between the onset and further (dis)continuation of risk behavior as these friendship influence processes might be less relevant for the onset of risk behavior.

In this paper we describe the first results of a recent cohort study conducted at Ghent University and focus on the applied study design. Existing cross-sectional studies regarding sexual victimization are not able to make causal statements about its risk and outcome factors. This cohort study aims to answer these questions. Results of this study confirmed that students are often confronted with sexual assault and seldom consult existing support services. This paper emphasizes the advantages of a longitudinal design within victimological research including the possibilities and difficulties that accompany it.

Criminology, as an inherently interdisciplinary field, has built on anthropology (and other social sciences) in its development. This contribution addresses the question which insights in criminology have most been inspired by anthropology. First, it looks into the ‘criminal anthropology’ of Lombroso; then it embarks on an appreciation of the ethnographic research design within criminology (as first adopted by the Chicago School); and, finally, it assesses the link between anthropology, and cultural and global criminology. I conclude that anthropology has been valuable to our discipline on four levels: methodologically (in the importance of the ethnographic research design), theoretically (in its role in the development of symbolic interactionism and structuralism, for example), geographically (in the global scope of anthropological research), and analytically, in its experience with ‘doing ethnography’ in economically, politically and culturally embedded ways.

This article presents findings from a longitudinal study of 81 young recidivists examined over fifteen years. By the age of 25, 50 percent had desisted for at least three years. 60 percent had had no new police contacts during the last two years. Four stages could be distinguished in the desistance process. Apart from a small number of explicit persisters, all of the young adults did consciously consider whether the benefits of their criminal activities outweighed the disadvantages. With just a few exceptions, the decision to quit was not motivated by an altruistic goal, nor by extreme fear, but mainly motivated by the feeling of being too old for criminal life and by striving for a pleasant self-esteem. It is concluded that when young adult recidivists give up crime, this must be seen as an extreme and extremely late form of maturation.

This contribution provides an overview of the legal and criminological research into the decision following the determination of a supervisor that the conditions of a freedom-restricting sanction are not met. It is an important decision, on the one hand because it can result in a more severe sanction than was initially imposed, on the other hand because a decision that is perceived as unfair can influence the extent to which suspects and convicts are willing to comply with conditions, and recidivism. Yet little research has been conducted into this decision. The legal safeguards with which it is accompanied are lagging behind those of the original sentencing decision. Undeserved according to penitentiary experts. The scarce empirical research shows that decision-making involves many different layers and that the actors involved have different goals, ranging from deterrence and emphasizing the credibility of the system to the successful completion of the sanction. Even in countries where regulations have been tightened considerably, the discretionary power of direct supervisors, such as employees of the working project or therapists, is still large. This raises the question to what extent the final decision maker (usually a judge) still has sufficient room to make an independent decision.