A well-established body of epidemiological research suggests that the prevalence of mental health problems (mental disorders, psychological distress, and substance use) in prisoner populations far exceeds that of non-incarcerated people in the surrounding community. Poor mental health in prisoners is associated with multiple adverse outcomes, including suicidal behaviour. In the past decade, novel data in Belgium and the Netherlands have been published on this topic, which have not been synthesized to date. The aim of the current systematic literature review was to provide an up-to-date overview of the mental health of prisoners in Belgium and the Netherlands. Based on 24 empirical studies conducted in 1997-2018, the authors conclude that people with mental health problems are overrepresented in Belgian and Dutch prisons, providing both a challenge and a public health opportunity to address the mental health care needs of a vulnerable and hard-to-engage population. Investing in the prevention and treatment of mental health problems not only benefits the prisoners concerned, but equally, society at large.

Terrorism could be regarded as an extreme type of (violent) criminal behaviour. Against this background, there is much to gain if criminological attention would be extended to terrorism. In this overview, the authors describe how and to what extent criminological theories may provide a significant contribution to underlying causes of terrorism. Previous criminological contributions to the field of terrorism have primarily taken a theory-extended approach, including routine activity theory, rational choice theory and strain theory. However, so far such studies lacked empirical data. Further, to this day, not much is known about the empirical applicability of other criminological theories, including desistance theories, which warrant particular attention. In order for criminology literature to contribute effectively to our understanding of terrorism and to pursue better counter-terrorism policies, empirical evidence should first be obtained. In this way, terrorism researchers, in close collaboration with criminologists, can deepen our theoretical and empirical understanding of this relatively underexplored field.

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.

The most recent extensive study on political and administrative corruption in The Netherlands dates back to 2005 (Huberts & Nelen, 2005). Afterwards various studies have been conducted on related subthemes and areas. In this contribution, the state of affairs regarding political and administrative corruption – and the responses to them – in The Netherlands in 2018 is described, based on the results of these studies. Starting with an overview of the nature and severity of political and administrative corruption, the focus shifts to relevant developments in the control and prevention of corruption, partly addressing the causes of the phenomenon.

Unlike criminal career research into the criminal behavior of natural persons, longitudinal research into rule violations by corporations is still scant. The few available studies are mostly limited to US corporations, and suffer from either a small sample size or a short follow-up period, limiting the generalizability of their findings. The present study uses longitudinal data on rule violating behavior of 494 Dutch chemical corporations derived from yearly inspections (N=4.367) of the relevant safety and environmental agencies between 2006 and 2017. The study aims to gain insight in the patterning of rule violations by Dutch chemical corporations, and the extent to which these patterns are associated with sector and corporate characteristics. The results show that rule violation is common among Dutch chemical corporations. A small minority of chronically violating corporations however, is responsible for a disproportional share of all observed rule violations. Using group-based trajectory modelling (GBTM) we distinguish several longitudinal patterns of rule violations in our data. Available sector and corporation characteristics are only weakly associated with the patterns of rule violations identified.

Women are less likely to commit criminal acts than men. This gender gap appears to be particularly pronounced in white-collar crime. This systematic literature review examines existing theories, such as the situational hypothesis and the ‘gendered theory of focal concerns’ and evaluates to what extent they find support in empiricism. The results seem to offer the most support to the ‘gendered theory of focal concerns’. This nourishes the hypothesis that with an increase of women at positions in the upper tiers of the company ladder a decrease in the prevalence of white-collar crime can be expected. However, it is also possible that the explanation of corporate crime does not lie in a lack of femininity, but in a lack of gender diversity. Furthermore, limited access to informal criminal networks, the ‘old boys networks’, seems to play an important role in the gender gap of white-collar crime.

Internationally, research on the experiences of white-collar offenders with the criminal justice system and the consequences of prosecution and conviction is scarce. Such research becomes more relevant, as the response to white-collar crime has become more punitive and more offenders are convicted. This paper presents the experiences of the co-author as a convicted white-collar offender as an autobiographical case-study. In this cases study, the consequences and experiences during four phases (investigation, prosecution, sentence-execution and post-sentencing) are analysed on four live-domains: health, private life, social life and professional life. Such an approach could be a blueprint for further and more systematic study of the experiences with and consequences of criminal justice for white-collar offenders. Such study can shed light on the effects and actual achievement of goals of punishment for white-collar crime.

This article studies the development in the prison system over the period 1837-2016 in the Netherlands. It describes trends in three characteristics of the Dutch prison system: (a) the number of prisoners, (b) the number of cells, and (c) the inflow of persons from the free society. The findings are twofold. On the one hand – when examining absolute numbers – the article shows that three distinct periods can be distinguished: a period of 140 years with low stable numbers (1837-1975), four decades in which the numbers tripled (1975-2005), and a subsequent decade where the numbers halved (2005-2016). On the other hand – when examining relative numbers, i.e. per 100.000 inhabitants, and thus controlling for the growth in population – the article displays that developments in the prison system in the Netherlands between 1837-2016 can best be characterized by a long-term continuous decrease in detention.

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.