This article focuses on the administrative relation between the levels of authority in the Netherlands while paying special attention to the distribution of administrative tasks and legislative power between government tiers. How has this process developed since the constitutional reform in 1848? Which motives have underpinned the fluctuating ways in which responsibilities and powers were divided? The constitutional reform of 1848 laid the foundation for the current administrative structure. A three-tier system forms the basis of its organization: national government, regional government (provinces) and local governments (municipalities). This article shows that in the Netherlands the leitmotiv for decentralization is to improve the governmental performance; efficiency, standardization and simplification are recurring objectives. Decentralization is also often used as an instrument to resolve specific policy issues. The article describes a discrepancy between the motives for decentralization, which can be explained by the differences between fundamental legislation involving the administrative structure on the one hand and legislation aimed at policy-making on the other hand.

Tensions between the central national level and the local level become clearly visible in coffee shop policies, which have to fit within the international VN and EU treaties and strategies, national drug policy principles and local interests of public order. Three cases, all concerning long-term problems of drug tourism, nuisance and crime around coffee shops, illustrate these tensions. In the case of coffee shop Checkpoint near the Belgian border the Public Prosecutor aimed at solving the problem by prosecuting the coffee shop as a criminal network, while the mayor tried to minimize the negative effects by facilitating visitor flows. In the case of the private club and residence criterion in 2012 not all the mayors actually enforced these national criteria. This leads to a bigger emphasis on local tailoring. Thirdly, several mayors have opted for a regulation of cannabis production for coffee shops, while the stance of the national government is that international treaties banning this practice should be respected. The influence of local policies may be small, but in the end the local communities seem crucial when it comes to finding new ways of managing drug problems.

De opleiding tot wetgevingsjurist van de Academie voor Wetgeving was ingericht om te voldoen aan een indertijd gevoelde behoefte. De inmiddels behaalde resultaten zijn goed, maar is de opleiding nog steeds nuttig? Er kunnen namelijk vragen worden gesteld over de inhoud van het wetgevingsonderwijs, terwijl ook de rol en functie van wetgevingsjuristen veranderen. Het verdient daarom aanbeveling om opnieuw na te gaan hoe tegenwoordig wetgevingsjuristen feitelijk hun werk doen en resultaten bereiken. Daarna moet worden bepaald in welke opzichten wetgevingsjuristen opleiding behoeven om ervoor te zorgen dat zij hun werk kritisch en constructief kunnen doen. De opleiding kan zich dan tegelijk met de wetgevingsfunctie en de wetenschappelijke studie van wetgeving ontwikkelen en daarmee haar nut voor de toekomst bewijzen.

Toezichthouders concluderen te snel dat netwerkgebonden markten een natuurlijk monopolie zijn waarvoor regulering nodig is. Marktprocestheorieën leggen de nadruk op de betwistbaarheid van ieder monopolie, ook in infrastructurele markten. Het gevolg is dat regulering en toezicht meer op afstand geplaatst kunnen worden. De marktprocesbenadering is ook toepasbaar in Nederlandse markten, zoals de energie, de telecommunicatie, luchthavens en de loodsen.

An increasingly large degree of ‘public craftsmanship’ is demanded from professionals working in neighborhoods where citizens actively participate in security issues. The central question in this article is what role these neighbourhood professionals – mostly civil servants, (community) police officers and welfare professionals – play in facilitating and supporting civic projects in the field of security, how they create their ‘own’ social order outside of the formal policy domain of the organizations involved, and how they keep the public interest in mind. On the basis of three types of neighbourhood based projects – Neighbourhood Watches, ‘The Neighbourhood Governs’, and Residential Budgets – questions about the improvising and ‘crafting’ work of professionals are explored in this article. Such work is much needed in order to successfully establish connections between the different parties involved, navigate between the interests of citizens and organizations, recruit civilians while simultaneously amending their aspirations and expectations, safeguard public interests and ensure the progress of projects. Some professionals back away from these additional tasks and responsibilities they are increasingly face with. In many neighbourhoods much more is required from professionals however than the traditional roles as they were once defined by police, welfare and municipal organizations. In particular, the ‘new’ crafting professionals need to be able to deal with unreasonable expectations of ‘angry citizens’ who tend to dominate citizen participation in local security issues, act impartially and be accountable to the larger public, show personality and street credibility, and, finally, be attentive to unequal outcomes with regard to the distribution of safety and security projects in neighborhoods and districts.

Social network analysis (SNA) has taken its place in the field of criminology, although among Dutch criminologists the emphasis remains on conceptual contributions. Meanwhile, the world of criminal investigation and intelligence has witnessed the development of a blossoming SNA-practice. The emergence of big data makes SNA an indispensable tool to exploit the oceans of data in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, when it comes to employing SNA, academia and the investigations and intelligence domains remain separated. While Dutch analysts adopt scientific ideas and concepts, they rarely contribute to the body of literature; confidential SNA reports remain inaccessible. Shedding light on over forty SNA related internal police studies, this article bridges the gap between Dutch academic criminologists and ‘pracademics’ in law enforcement.

Over de vraag of de franchiseovereenkomst in Nederland alsnog een benoemde status dient te krijgen, wordt aanhoudend gediscussieerd in politiek, media en literatuur. Tot nu toe heeft de focus volgens de auteurs te eenzijdig gelegen op codificatie. In deze bijdrage bepleiten zij dat naast codificatie, mede naar aanleiding van kort rechtsvergelijkend onderzoek, ook zelfregulering een serieus te overwegen optie is.

This article discusses the complex relations between the organizational fields of safety (i.e. disaster and crisis response) and security (i.e. crime prevention and public order), and the ways in which disciplinary and organizational boundaries make it difficult to come to a better integration or coordination in the safety and security domain. Based on results of a research project on cooperation and information-sharing between organizations in the fields of safety and security, the authors argue that it is not realistic to refer to safety and security as relatively independent fields. Instead, it would be more useful to approach it as a connected domain, encompassing both safety and security disciplines. Yet, the separation of the two fields is strongly embedded in the culture and responsibilities of organizations in these fields, which reinforces the disciplinary boundaries in the domain. Nevertheless, in the last few years it seems that there is an increasing recognition of the need for multidisciplinary collaboration in the safety and security domain. This paper explores possible directions for creating more coherence and integration in the safety and security domain. The authors believe that much progress can be made if key stakeholders in the safety and security domain are able to adopt a broader, multidisciplinary perspective when approaching safety and security events.

Despite the international scientific inconclusiveness about the nature of the fear of crime, the strategic layer of the Dutch government aims to reduce the fear of crime in general by 2017. But their policy-goals were not accompanied with a plan how to realize them. Meanwhile, local practitioners claim to be in search of practical tools and substantive support how to fight back the public’s fear of crime. This study was aimed to feed the discussion with a constructive and realistic input from both the practitioners and the scientific view. The research question was: ‘What do local practitioners do against the public’s fear of crime and how can these activities be improved?’ 36 local practitioners from Dutch local municipalities, the police force and the public prosecutor were interviewed. Schön’s idea of the ‘reflective practitioner’ (1983) was the underlying argument to make practical knowledge about reducing the fear of crime explicit. The respondents from both institutional layers of local ‘policy advise’ and ‘policy implementation’ were quite reluctant about fighting back the public’s fear of crime. They aim to reduce the fear of crime in a doubtful and indirect way. Because many sources of the public’s fear of crime were unknown to them or were not in the reach of their professional activities. In this way, the interviewed local practitioners approach strongly aligned with the advice of international scientists to be reluctant and realistic about fighting back the public’s fear of crime. We advised an approach of ‘local fear of and worry about crime’ in dialog between international science and the interviewed local Dutch practitioners. The results of it will probably not contribute to quantitative policy goals at the national level, but rather to custom fit, qualitative improvements on the local level. This will probably be the most effective way to fight back the few tractable elements that make up the fear of crime.

Over de vraag of de franchiseovereenkomst in Nederland alsnog een benoemde status dient te krijgen, wordt aanhoudend gediscussieerd in politiek, media en literatuur. Tot nu toe heeft de focus volgens de auteurs te eenzijdig gelegen op codificatie. In deze bijdrage bepleiten zij dat naast codificatie, mede naar aanleiding van kort rechtsvergelijkend onderzoek, ook zelfregulering een serieus te overwegen optie is.

Prison policy in Belgium and the Netherlands is changing rapidly. While Belgium struggles with a persisting prison overcrowding, the Netherlands strongly cuts back on the prison system and is closing an increasing number of prisons. This introductory article to a special issue on detention starts with a short outline of recent changes in Dutch and Belgian prison policy, focusing on developments in detention capacity and prison population. Subsequently we present an overview of empirical criminological research in the Netherlands and Belgium, situated within the international literature, with a specific focus on studies regarding life in detention and effects of detention on prisoners' lives and on their social environment. Finally, we reflect upon existing detention research in both countries, e.g. in terms of gaps in research topics and methodology, and discuss some future developments.

This article examines the transformations in form and function of rituals in the squatting movement in Amsterdam. Upon roaring early years, rituals emerged around the search for houses to squat, the actual squatting and evictions. These rituals were recognized and used by squatters as well as other parties and they have contributed to the reduction of violence. Meanwhile, squatting in the Netherlands was prohibited and the question arises if, in this new situation, form and function of rituals have changed too. The findings shed some light on the broader link between rituals and resistance.

In de loop van 2014 zal op Aruba een nieuw Wetboek van Strafrecht in werking treden. Dit wetboek voorziet onder andere in de introductie van een aantal nieuwe op therapeutische leest geschoeide beveiligingsmaatregelen, zoals tbs, SOV en de strafrechtelijke ondercuratelestelling. De auteurs inventariseren de beschikbaarheid van (bestaande en aanstaande) juridische titels binnen het Arubaanse recht ten behoeve van gedwongen opneming van psychisch gestoorde of verslaafde volwassenen die vanwege onaangepast, zelfdestructief en/of delinquent gedrag met politie of justitie in aanraking komen. Deze titels worden besproken en aan een kritische analyse onderworpen. Daarnaast wordt bezien in hoeverre het huidige aanbod van forensisch-psychiatrische voorzieningen op het eiland toereikend zal zijn in het licht van de behoefte die zal ontstaan zodra het nieuwe wetboek in volle omvang in werking treedt.

At the end of 2000, a pilot project began in Flanders (Belgium) to offer family group conferencing for juvenile offenders. Since June 2006, this restorative practice – together with victim-offender mediation – has been inserted in the new Youth Justice Act, making conferencing available in all judicial districts in Flanders. Five years later, however, the mediation-services had to conclude that the number of referrals for conferencing remains rather limited. This observation inspired the mediation services to take actions to bring conferencing more to the attention. This article reports on the findings of a study that was part of this process. Based on (1) an analysis of all conferencing-files that were referred between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 31, (2) focus groups with youth court social workers and criminologists working at the level of the public prosecutor and (3) surveys conducted with youth judges, the study aimed to identify and discuss barriers and obstacles within the current referral practice of conferencing in Flanders.

Starting in 2015, Dutch municipalities will have complete administrative responsibility for all types of youth care on the continuum of preventive child education programs to youth probation and re-entry aftercare. In the process of this so called ‘youth care transition’, the use of available and valid scientific knowledge about effective reduction of juvenile crime (distilled from What Works, desistance focused studies and forensic pedagogy) seems to be suppressed by the administrative and procedural concerns that municipalities are now facing. In this article, these concerns are discussed and some solutions are presented.

This article deals with the performance of ‘street credibility’. A dramaturgical analysis of the lyrics and videos of 15 rap artist from The Hague sheds light on the various ways they try to achieve a credible street reputation as rappers. In their frontstage presentation they highlight their street knowledge, strike violent poses, and claim affiliation to certain infamous local gangs or neighborhoods. Backstage, however, these performances are being deconstructed by other actors who participate in the local street culture and who form a critical, metaphysical audience of the presentations of the rappers.