Images can honour and dishonour people. But they only do so when that specific meaning is assigned to the image. This article shows that the meaning of images is dynamic and subjective in nature, using three analytical dimensions: content, format and context. These three dimensions are explored in two series of images: painted portraits of deceased American soldiers and photographs of posters of Palestinian suicide bombers. Whether these images are honouring or dishonouring the people portrayed depends on the viewer who constructs their meaning. This not only gives the creator and distributor a (moral) responsibility, but the viewer as well.

Honour-based violence (HBV) is a tight knot of conflict, gender and ethnicity. It is also the sensational subject of many bestselling books, in which mostly female victims of HBV tell their life stories. Researchers of feminism and multiculturalism argue that migrant women are often presented as passive victims, and migrant men as violent perpetrators. In our first article for PROCES on this subject, we analysed ten (auto)biographies of female victims of HBV, using theoretical insights on stigmatization. After the publication of this article, we continued to collect these true life stories. In our current article, we analyse two new aspects: how do these stories find their way to the Internet, and are there any HBV stories by male authors? Do stories by male authors shed a different light on honour conflicts and on stereotypes of culture and gender?

In the Netherlands honour based violence is often associated with cases that take place in a Turkish context. But honour codes can be found all over the world. In order to develop a more profound understanding of honour based violence it is therefore important to study this phenomenon in different social and cultural circumstances. In this contribution attention is paid towards the experiences of young men from Curaçao that live on the fringes of Dutch society. How do they perceive honour and the relationship with the use of violence?

This article explores the ways in which the work of the police is influenced by ideas about gender. Even though there is a long tradition of doing research about selectivity of the control agencies of criminal law, criminology has hardly had any attention for this topic. The main purpose of this article is to find out the meaning of the theoretical concept of gender for the social control of crime by the police and to give some examples for illustration. First of all, the article takes into consideration any crucial aspects of the process of selectivity.

This article sheds light on an aspect of honour-based violence (HBV) that is rarely addressed: male victimisation. HBV is usually regarded as violence inflicted on women by men. Police cases of male victimisation of HBV and scarce literature on this subject illustrate the ways in which men can become victims of violence. Men can be victimised in the same way that women are, for example when they commit adultery, are openly homosexual, or through conflicts about the choice of a partner. A specific and contested form of male victimisation occurs when their families pressure them to commit violence in order to restore family honour. Men are less likely than women to claim victim status and their victimisation of HBV is therefore possibly underreported. The authors do not argue to neglect female victims, but to expand hegemonic images of HBV and gender roles to include male victimisation. More insight into these matters is necessary to ensure the right support for each victim of HBV and to enable men and women to resolve these conflicts together.

There are not only biological differences between men and women; there are also differences in social roles for men and women. In the 1970s the term ‘gender’ was introduced in order to make a distinction between the biological sex and the social roles ascribed to the sexes. But what does that term gender actually mean and what does it add to our understanding of social life in general and especially within the field of law enforcement? In the first part of the article a brief historical overview of the introduction of and debate on the gender concept is presented. The second part zooms in on the actual use of gender in (criminological) research on law enforcement.

How can police officers make use of citizens’ religious beliefs when dealing with cases of honour-based violence (HBV)? In this article religion is addressed regarding motive and legitimisation of violence and as a social network of people and institutions for communities of believers. We focus on Islamic religion, because most cases of HBV handled by the police take place within Islamic communities and because the Dutch public debate on religion revolves around Islam. We interviewed police officers with expertise on HBV. These officers have an instrumental vision on religion. It helps them to gain insight in motives for violence and it offers opportunities for conflict mediation and coping with the aftermath of HBV.

In contrast to the societal debate, the topic of religion and crime is only scarcely present in contemporary criminological research. A special issue on this theme hence seemed very relevant. Even though the editors launched an open call, the submitted proposals were almost always related to Islam. In this introduction we therefore reflect on questions and themes that, in our opinion, should be included in this special issue on religion and crime. First, we give a short overview of Belgian, Dutch and American research on the missing theme of sexual abuse in the church. Second, we discuss the complex concept of ‘religion’. Third, we assess the complex relationship between religion and crime and reflect on the question of whether and when religion leads to more or, on the contrary, less crime. We end this introduction with a brief overview of the selected contributions for this special issue.

Honour based violence has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years in the Dutch public debate. However, given that honour can be damaged and restored in many ways, defining this kind of violence is rather difficult. The term honour based violence is an umbrella concept. This article explains how, within this concept, the relationship between religion and violence in the name of honour is understood.

Combatting honour related violence forms an important topic of criminal justice policy in the Netherlands. This article analyzes this policy, in particular the prosecution guideline on honour related violence, thereby focusing on victims and perpetrators, and the difficulties of dealing with the cultural background of honour related violence in criminal justice policy.

There is a tendency to put honour-based and domestic violence in the same box. This article examines whether this is correct or not. The perception of the two phenomena share a number of similarities: violence that often occurs in the context of the family and, in many cases, complex issues that have already been at play for some time. Furthermore, the perception is that primarily women are the victims of both domestic and honour-based violence. A big difference is that the term domestic violence refers to the social context where violence is taking place and the term honour-based refers to the motive for violent action or threats. A complicating factor is that hurt feelings of honour might provoke violence or threats in the context of the family. In research literature it is assumed that domestic violence occurs at all levels of society, which means that this phenomenon will also be encountered amongst ethnic minorities. It is striking that domestic violence amongst ethnic minorities is often mentioned in the same breath as honour-based violence. However, both phenomena deserve a different approach. The risks of treating domestic violence as an honour case and honour-based violence as domestic abuse are described.

Honour-related physical or psychological violence, performed in reaction to perceived (threats of) loss of (family) honour, draws a lot of political and public attention in the Netherlands. A comprehensive policy-program was developed to reduce and prevent honour-related violence. However, the project knows two important restraints. In the first place, no reliable prevalence figures of honour-related violence are available. Furthermore, the program has been implemented without articulating and testing the presumed working mechanisms. In this article suggestions are made for evaluation of the program using the educational project ‘Black Tulip’ as an illustration. Black Tulip is used in secondary schools and aims at adolescent potential victims and perpetrators of honour-related violence. The main purpose is to achieve attitude and behaviour changes by means of visualizing experiences with honour-related violence in drama and film, and subsequent group discussions. Evaluation of Black Tulip and other parts of the program should take place by a combination of traditional evaluation research (e.g. with pre- and post-measurements of attitudes and behaviour in ‘Black Tulip-schools’ and in schools that do not receive the intervention), and a theory-driven evaluation which articulates the presumptions about the working mechanisms of the program and puts these to a test using the scientific literature.

Er verschijnen regelmatig egodocumenten over problemen met betrekking tot eercodes in de familiekring. Het populaire beeld is dat allochtone vrouwen passieve slachtoffers zijn van de mannen uit hun omgeving. In deze bijdrage vragen de auteurs zich af of dit stigmatiserende beeld ook uit de tien door hen gelezen egodocumenten naar voren komt. Een ander stigma dat zij behandelen, is dat van de twijfel over de authenticiteit van dit soort teksten. Recente schandalen hebben het prestige van dit genre namelijk geen goed gedaan.