This study revolves around the broad question: can religion prevent crime? In the first part the (possible) impact of religious faith on social behaviour (or the prevention of certain behaviours) is discussed. Respectively the following aspects are dealt with: religion as a source of activism, religion as protective factor to keep people from crime, and the impact of crime on tolerant or intolerant and forgiving or punitive attitudes. The second part deals with deliberately organized faith-based-interventions, intended to support and help inmates. The role of identity change via redemption narratives is examined, as well as the question how professionals and volunteers may stimulate rehabilitation and reintegration of (ex-)prisoners.

Door de toenemende culturele diversiteit in Nederland is te verwachten dat steeds meer niet-westerse verdachten zich in een strafzaak beroepen op hun cultuur. Op basis van dossieronderzoek en interviews is onderzocht in hoeverre overige uitbuitingszaken (een vorm van mensenhandel ex art. 273s Sr) culturele strafzaken zijn en hoe rechters hiermee omgaan. De resultaten laten zien dat rechters worstelen met culturele verweren bij overige uitbuitingszaken: enerzijds willen zij rekening houden met de culturele achtergrond van de dader, maar anderzijds dient aan de hand van Nederlandse normen te worden vastgesteld of er sprake is van mensenhandel.

Recidivism after a community service is compared to recidivism after imprisonment in a matched sample of adult Dutch offenders. We use longitudinal, official record data to compare recidivism over a maximum of eight years. ‘Propensity score matching’ and ‘matching by variable’ are used to take selection-effects into account. After a community service offenders turn out to recidivate less than after a prison sanction.

How many criminal suspects become victims themselves? A high correlation of offence and victimisation is to be expected because of a marked similarity between offenders and victims. We assume that offenders strongly fulfil the lifestyle and environment criteria, associated with an increased risk of victimisation. By studying self-reported victimisation data from 39.978 respondents, matched to registered criminal suspects, we verified our assumption that criminal suspects are at considerably higher risk of being victims. This correlation is especially high for crimes of violence and for people suspected of multiple crimes.

In criminology a lot of attention is paid to risk factors in the development of criminal behaviour. It is also not uncommon to speak of criminogenic factors. In the reported research project a monitor of relevant risk factors on an aggregated level (city, city councils and boroughs) was developed. In addition the data were combined into a so-called criminogenity index for the city of Amsterdam. The article discusses the development and results of the monitor and index. It elaborates on an article which was published earlier (TvV, 2007 (6) 2), but can be read as a stand alone article.

This article presents a study on Post-Conviction Polygraphy in the Netherlands. Importantly, it exclusively focuses on cybercrime offenders. The study was designed to systematically address the different child sexual behaviours exhibited by 38 subjects who were in treatment for possessing child abuse images. The results gave indications that post-conviction polygraphy can provide additional data to inform the development of theory in this area and contribute to the treatment, supervision and more effective containment of offending behaviour, and the reduction of future victimization.

Since the mid-90s, people can obtain ‘burglary prevention advice’ in Belgium, which means that a burglary prevention adviser will carry out a free assessment of the dwelling regarding the protection against a burglary and will recommend security measures as needed. In 2008, a large-scale survey by postal mail, commissioned and financed by the Belgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, was conducted to examine three main questions concerning burglary prevention advice in Belgium. Firstly, who receives a burglary prevention visit, or in other words what are the demographic characteristics of the citizens who obtain advice? Secondly, what is the extent to which these persons are satisfied with the visit and which elements, related to the advice, are associated with this (dis)satisfaction? Finally, do these citizens implement the proposed prevention measures and what is the role of the financial incentives (e.g. a tax deduction and an investment subsidy) concerning this implementation? Using a stratified random sample, 2,123 citizens were selected of whom ultimately 1,193 persons answered and returned the questionnaire. This paper presents the main findings of this study. We will also draw attention to the risk of an increased societal dualization and exclusion in the field of community safety when burglary prevention becomes predominantly the responsibility of the individual. The results of our survey for instance suggest that certain groups in society, namely the lower educated, tenants and apartment dwellers, are insufficiently sensitized to call upon these advisers. Furthermore, mainly the higher educated and those with higher incomes plan to make use of the possibility of tax deduction.

Incorporated groups include businesses, universities, churches and the like. Organized to act as single centers of agency, they also routinely satisfy the three conditions that make an agent fit to be held responsible: they face significant choices, can recognize the relative value of different options, and are able to choose in sensitivity to such values. But is it redundant to hold a corporate agent responsible for something, when certain members are also held responsible for the individual parts they play? No it is not, for it is often possible for a corporate entity to be fully fit to be held responsible, when this is not true of the individual members; they may be able to make excuses that are not available at the corporate level. Does the case made for corporate responsibility extend to unincorporated collectivities like nations or religions? Not strictly but it does explain why it may be sensible to treat those collectivities as if they had corporate responsibility in certain domains.

This paper argues, against Pettit’s thesis about the incorporation of responsibility, that holding collective agents criminally responsible is necessarily either redundant or unfair: redundant if responsibility can be distributed without remainder over individual persons; unfair if it cannot. It should be the task of legal systems to create chains of individual criminal responsibility encompassing executives, officials, and members of corporate agents.

In dit artikel wordt vastgesteld dat er weinig aandacht is voor de morele dimensie van het werken in gedwongen kader. Van de werker wordt gevraagd om een goed ‘prosociaal rolmodel’ te zijn. Vóór de methodische vraag hoe dit te doen met behulp van bestaande aanpakken, ligt de inhoudelijke vraag: welke ‘conventionele waarden’ draagt de werker uit?Het artikel kijkt kritisch naar de veelgekozen theoretische invalshoek van Kohlberg, waarbij het niveau van het morele redeneren aangrijpingspunt voor methodisch handelen is en stelt vragen bij het veelgehanteerde begrip ‘eigen verantwoordelijkheid’. Conclusie is dat de inhoud van de uit te dragen moraal te weinig aan de orde is. Aanbeveling is om onderzoek naar best practices op dit gebied te doen en beleidsmatig aandacht te schenken aan het morele klimaat van de organisatie en de manier waarop dit in het contact tussen werkers en cliënten tot uitdrukking dient te komen.

In this paper the author argues that, despite the apparently technical nature of questions of effectiveness, in fact any considered and critical analysis of the empirical evidence about desistance, rehabilitation and ‘what works?’ compel us to consider the moral character and context of criminal justice interventions.

In 2008, Ruud Lubbers led a mediation process to resolve the conflicts which had arisen between two Dutch campaigning organisations, various Indian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and labour unions, two Dutch internet providers, an Indian clothing producer and a Dutch jeans brand. The mediation took place at the request of the disagreeing parties and the Dutch and Indian governments. The conflict related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards followed by the textile companies.In this contribution the effects of campaigning and litigating in issues concerning CSR will be examined. Limiting the analysis to CSR conflicts in the textile industry, the author will reflect on these new types of international conflicts in a globalising world and will share her view on appropriate ways to avoid them or, ultimately, to (re)mediate them if necessary.This contribution informs the reader about the events in India and the Netherlands which led to the escalation of the conflict. It provides an overview of the conflict resolution procedures and elaborates on the outcome of the ‘Lubbers Mediation’. The applicable legal and soft law labour standards are compared as well as the parties’ communication strategies. Lastly, this case is contrasted with other CSR conflicts in the textile industry, revealing a hidden conflict.

Based on an analysis of twenty five years of articles in Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, we describe developments in the use of research methods and tools. One of the questions is how and to what extent new techniques are adopted over the years and whether certain sources of data become more or less popular. Almost half of the articles were non-empirical, and of the remainder the majority primarily made use of quantitative research methods. In the second half of the period under study, the use of secondary data, collected and often processed by people other than the researcher in question, became much more prominent. Amongst other elements, international comparative research was scarce, as was the use of experimental designs. About one-third of all empirical articles were based on qualitative research. We give some suggestions to increase variation among the kind of articles published in the journal.

This article briefly outlines the origin and development in the past fifty years of institutions in the Netherlands and Flanders which have explicitly been labelled ‘criminological’. There are remarkable differences in developments between both regions. But in The Netherlands as well as in Flanders criminology has grown over the course of a century from a very modest phenomenon in the margin of criminal policy to a fully-fledged specialisation in socio-scientific and criminal research in universities, and a recognised qualification on the labour market.

This article first addresses the tension between scientific requirements and policy oriented criminological research. The article then proceeds to describe the historical development of policy oriented criminology in the Netherlands. This narrative can be divided into three phases: early history, the years 1980-1995 and the period from 1995. Criminology in the Netherlands has always had and retains a strong policy orientation. The growth of professional (academic) criminology is a relatively recent phenomenon. ‘Critical’ and ‘public’ criminology always have been and remain the work of individuals. The development of policy oriented criminological research in the Netherlands appears dependent on governmental involvement. The situations in Belgium and the USA give the same impression.