Samenvatting

The focus of evaluation studies sanctions or sanction policy is mainly on the effectiveness of outcome, such as reducing recidivism. Public policy evaluations (PPEs) often use a more broad evaluation framework, including contribution analysis and multiple evaluation criteria. These evaluations are not limited to effectiveness, but focus also on relevance, goal attainment, efficiency, or coordination of the policy. Moreover, PPE recommends incorporating policy specific criteria, such as evaluating human rights in practice. This framework was adopted in a post hoc evaluation of the Adolescent Criminal Law (ACL).
This case study focused on the sanctioning of young adult offenders aged 18 up to and including 22 years old with a juvenile sanction in the Netherlands. In order to evaluate multiple criteria, a range of methods and sources was used, including a literature review, reconstruction of the policy theory, empirical analysis of registration data, a quasi-experiment, interviews with practitioners, and analysis of court decisions. Results showed that ACL has theoretical relevance to stimulate desistance from a criminal career, and that the forensic advice and sanctioning with a juvenile sanction increased as expected over time. However, juvenile sanctioning of young adult offenders showed a negative or null-effect on recidivism. Bottlenecks in practice can explain these mixed effects, such as a non-specified target group, variation across the Netherlands in forensic advice and opposed sanctions, and limited access to juvenile forensic services. Indications of bottlenecks in the ability to comply with human rights were also found, such as a lack of transparency and equality in the application of adolescent criminal law. The relevance of complying with human rights in practice is discussed in the light of contemporary resocialization theories.