This essay charts the changing status of the death penalty in western societies, from a cultural universal three hundred years ago to a prohibited penalty today, and offers a sociological explanation for that great transformation. The ability to impose the penalty of death is an elementary particle of state power. That power was frequently and spectacularly deployed in early modern Europe as states asserted a monopoly on legitimate violence and absolutist rulers deployed force to subdue their enemies. Once states consolidated their infrastructural power, the ostentatious killing of subjects became less necessary. As liberal politics limited the legitimate use of state violence and established legal protections for individuals, and as cultural change softened state power, the death penalty became increasingly problematic. The character of state power, and the balance between liberalism and democracy, civilized refinement and humanitarian sensibility, explains the pace and extent of death penalty change in specific western nations.

There is a strange contradiction in the history of Dutch criminal justice. On the one hand, until well into the 20^th Century, it was peculiarly backward in terms of criminal procedure that remained based on principles deriving essentially from the era of the first Dutch republic (17^th and 18^th Century) or even earlier. On the other, The Netherlands was one of the first countries in Europe to lastingly abolish capital punishment without the intermediate phase of continuing executions out of public view. In this, Dutch criminal justice was decidedly ahead of its times. This contribution examines this apparent contradiction that cannot be entirely explained by existing theories on (the abolition of) capital punishment. It must also be seen in the light of the historical role of publicity/transparency for the legitimacy of criminal justice in the Netherlands, its link to a legal culture of public confidence in the criminal justice authorities and the relatively late reception of Enlightenment ideals.

What does a religious perspective imply for the justification of the state imposing punishment on perpetrators of criminal offences under criminal law? As religion is experiencing a revival, it is not a strange idea to examine what a religious perspective can teach us in relation to criminal law. What religious fundamentalism and conservatism have to offer in this respect seems quite clear, namely retributive action by the state, as God's representative on earth, against conduct contrary to the dogmas of the Holy Scriptures. Nevertheless, research shows that conventional believers also often recognize the value of forgiveness and reconciliation. What is not clear, however, is what mysticism has to offer in relation to criminal law. In contradiction to conventional criminal law, from a mystical perspective there is no call for intentional infliction of pain in responding to crime. To avenge evil with evil is dismissed for both moral and practical reasons. Encouraging the spiritual awakening of man forms the alfa and omega of a mystical approach to crime.

The fact that the Netherlands have abolished the death penalty in 1870 does not imply that this criminal sanction doesn't affect the Dutch legal order anymore. As a member of the international ‘legal family’ The Netherlands are confronted regularly with the continuing existence of capital punishment abroad, for instance when a Dutch national is sentenced to death in a foreign country. The (threat of a) death penalty is an important factor when Dutch administrative or judicial authorities have to decide on matters concerning the admission or expulsion of foreign citizens or the extradition of suspects to countries where they run the risk of being sentenced to death. In the Netherlands the enforcement of life sentences can get the character of a suspended death sentence when time and again pardon is denied and the convict will die a prisoner. Long-term prisoners suffer a kind of civil death, being cut off from their families, friends and other social contacts. In sum: enough reasons to focus once more on the ultimate criminal sanction.

Offenders can be deprived from their profession or office by a court. The Dutch legislator has recently increased possibilities for the judge to disqualify offenders who committed certain crimes within their professional occupation. This article discusses a study on the penalty of expulsion from a profession or an office. It appears that this penalty is not often imposed. Most cases concern sex crime cases and fraud cases. Although it is a penalty, the prosecutors and judges general aim at preventing new crimes when considering a disqualification. It is not known whether convicted persons comply to this penalty. The prosecution does not actively supervise observance. Respondents in this study fear that relapse into new crime within a profession happens, but figures are lacking on this point. Positive and negative sides of the disqualification are discussed in the article.

Teenagers between twelve and eighteen years of age are protected by Dutch criminal law against sexual encounters that cannot be qualified as non-consensual. If these teenagers are approached without force they are thus protected against such a contact, but they could have played a sexual active role nevertheless. This paper deals with how officials of the police and justice departments value sexual contacts between youngsters as lewd and in what circumstances these interactions are possibly permissible. What is the motivation for initiating criminal law and how to explain the distinction between the alleged offender and the alleged victim? The juridical valuation of the professionals dealing with criminal law is analysed followed by some critical remarks regarding the protection of sexual active youngsters against other sexual active youngsters as well as the act of sex as transgression.

The main question of this article is why the existing diverse populist movements have at least one feature in common: Crime, security and harsher punishments are high on their political agenda. The author points out that the rise of criminality in the last 20 years is a real basis for the growing anxiety among the population about insecurity. This anxiety is reinforced by the blown up media attention for crime issues. The dominance of the security issue is further explained and enhanced by cultural factors like individualisation, migration and the rise of a vitalist culture characterised by a geografical and normative boundlessness. In this context norm violations are always lurking and contributing to an insecure, complex and chaotic society. (In)security has become the common denominator to which all grievances can be reduced. The creation of new structures giving reassurance could provide a democratic alternative for the unevitable authoritarian tendency in state policy caused by the rise of populism. This type of social order should be understood in terms of arrangements of institutions and of tuning stakeholders to one another. Taking this longing for security among the population seriously means also to stop addressing civilians as consumers and start urging them to act like co-responsibles.