What do we know about the criminological aspects of international crimes? What do they entail and what are facilitating factors which can help us understand their causes and how should we respond to these crimes? Are international crimes merely a more extreme form of ordinary crimes or are they a different kind of criminality? In the past few years a growing number of scholars both at a national and at an international level have devoted their scholarly attention to this important and urgent research theme. In this special issue we aim to present a number of articles in which different perspectives on this topic are presented. By doing so we hope to enhance our knowledge of this phenomenon and to provide an impulse to further criminological research within this area in both the Netherlands and Belgium. This introductory article gives an overview of the state of the art of international crime criminology in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the rest of the world.

From its beginning in 2002, the Dutch Journal of Safety Studies (JSS) has wanted to be a platform for Dutch and Belgian academic articles about all facets of safety and security. Furthermore the journal wants to be a platform for multidisciplinary articles in which safety and security issues are studied from different and complementary perspectives or academic fields.This article provides a content analysis of all 129 JSS-articles. The analysis shows that the focus of JSS is on matters of social safety (and less on the more ‘technical’ safety issues) and on the organization of safety (functioning of organizations or networks and/or the effectiveness of measures) and less on safety as such. Over the years, a few changes have taken place. (1) In the field of social safety the focus has shifted somewhat from ‘the organization of safety’ towards safety as such. (2) Although the proportion of articles from Belgium is small (5,4%), it has increased over the years. (3) Authors from Dutch universities of applied sciences have published no more than 4 articles (3,1%), the first one of which appeared in Volume 6. After some years, these authors discovered the JSS as a platform for their work.JSS covers a wide range of subjects in the field of safety and how it can be organized. Although most articles stem from criminology and/or public management, JSS contains articles from different academic fields such as criminology, communication, law, psychology, engineering, public management, medical science, etc. However, in one and the same article one does not often find a combination of really different academic perspectives, such as engineering and psychology or informatics and criminology. If the JSS aims to be a truly multidisciplinary journal, it should contain more articles of this kind over the next ten years.

Since the legalization of the prostitution sector, not only has the combating of human trafficking through criminal law been substantially fortified, but also the administrative approach to human trafficking in that sector. This integral approach of human trafficking, in which administrative and criminal law measures complement each other, is necessary to combat this harrowing type of crime. The criminal law-administrative approach offers good footholds for a more forceful reaction to human trafficking. Besides the preventive effect administrative measures can have as a complement to criminal law, administrative supervision can also be useful to obtain criminal law information. However, that brings several new dilemmas with it that are connected to the phenomenon of the blurring of spheres. Under certain circumstances, the blurring of spheres between a criminal law and an administrative approach can lead to an improper use of competencies. We conclude that in the manner in which the prostitution sector is currently supervised, the legal protection of the citizen against actions of the supervisor is inadequately guaranteed. That does not mean that information that is obtained through administrative supervision may no longer be used in criminal cases. It is to be recommended however that several changes be made to current practice, which may prevent the improper use of supervisory competencies in prostitution controls.

In this contribution the author reviews: Business as usual? Corporate involvement in international crimes, by Wim Huisman.

The Belgian Customs Administration has taken the lead on the federal level to elaborate an anti-corruption policy. Up till now the initiatives of the administration D&A consisted of: anti-corruption training for the complete staff, a distribution of the relevant regulation concerning corruption and the setting up of an internal complaints desk. These measures suggest that mainly the individual employee has to take responsibility to prevent corruption. Based on three related research stages we conclude that the social-economic context and the organisational characteristics also contribute to the explanation of corruption which implies to go beyond the micro-level when developing an anti-corruption policy. The structure of our analysis is based on the five key variables of Gobert and Punch: the social, economic and cultural characteristics, the nature and structure of the organisation, rationality, neutralisation techniques and moral disengagement and crime facilitative characteristics. This contribution is the first section of a research project on the responsibilities of the public sector and the private companies for public corruption.

There is a large – and still growing – body of criminological literature on the relationship between crime and work. However, the exact nature of that relationship often remains diffuse. In this article we explored the relationships between organized crime and work. Based on analysis of the forty most recent cases of the Organized Crime Monitor we distinguished between two types of relations connecting organized crime and work. First, crimes can be based in the occupation of the offender when the occupation provides concrete opportunities to offend or facilitates the crimes of others. Secondly, the occupation of the offender can also be used as a shield concealing the illegal behavior or identity of the offender.

Employment and crime are commonly assumed to be negatively correlated. Those employed are less likely to commit crimes, and conversely, those who have a criminal record are less likely to become employed. Criminological research has provided strong empirical and theoretical support for the link between employment and crime, but also suggests that a complex set of mechanisms may be at play. Additionally, studies show that employment can also increase the risk of criminal behaviour. In the introduction of this special issue, three causal relationships in the work-crime nexus will be discussed: employment causing crime, employment preventing crime, and crime blocking future employment.