How best to account for moral quality in adjudication? This article proposes a six-pack of judicial virtues as part of a truly virtue-centred approach to adjudication. These virtues are presented as both constitutive and indispensible for realizing moral quality in adjudication. In addition, it will be argued that in order to honour the inherent relational dimension of adjudication a judge should not only possess these judicial virtues to a sufficient degree, he should also have the attitude of a civic friend. The Aristotelian concept of civic friendship will be proposed as an important complement to a virtue-ethical approach to adjudication.

Lately, several private and public compensation schemes have been established in the Netherlands for people who have been sexually abused as a minor by representatives of the Catholic Church, childcare workers or foster parents. Eligible for compensation are those who can make a reasonable case of the likelihood that they have been sexually abused. They do not have to provide indisputable proof of the abuse. The author of this article argues that this low burden of proof makes these compensation schemes vulnerable to fraud. He supports his argumentation with several examples of dishonest victims who have been unmasked as fraudsters. Furthermore, he explains that undetected fraud can have several adverse by-effects, such as the condemnation of falsely accused persons and impairment of the credibility of compensation schemes and agencies that run such schemes. The author concludes with emphasizing the need for more explicit policies on fraud prevention, detection, and control.

Although there is evidence for a victim-offender overlap for various crimes, specific empirical research into a victim-offender overlap for intimate partner violence is scarce. The current study empirically examines the presence of a victim-offender overlap among 156 victims of partner violence recruited at Dutch service organizations. Results show a clear victim-offender overlap, especially for behaviors of psychological partner violence and to a lesser degree for physical partner violence. Implications of these findings for the Dutch law on temporary restraining orders are discussed.

Dynamic predictors of periods of incarceration across the life course of female prisoners in the Netherlands were examined, inspired by a Gendered Pathways to Offending framework. Through life course calendars and surveys 397 female prisoners were interviewed. Women who were employed, received benefits, experienced childbirth, or were involved with substance abusing partners were less likely to be incarcerated one year later. Women whose parents had divorced, were addicted to hard drugs, worked as prostitutes, were homeless, had debts, had income from crime or a criminal partner, or received treatment for psychological problems were at increased risk for incarceration one year later.

Criminal law is embedded in a specific view of man and the world. This thesis implies that a change of the view of man and the world leads necessarily to a change of criminal law. Since our view of man and the world is constantly changing, the same applies for our law governing wrongful conduct. In this article is described how our view of man and the world has changed through the ages (during pre-modernity and modernity) and what changes have occurred under the influence thereof. Given the limited size of this article, a macro-perspective is utilized. At the end of the article, the author advocates a new (trans-modern) view of man and the world and a new corresponding law governing wrongful conduct.

Eleven Teams against Child Abuse Images and Transnational Child Sex Offences (TBKKs) are operating within the Dutch National Police Force. This study provides an in-depth analysis of the resilience of criminal investigators working in these teams and how they perceive and cope with daily work stressors. Observational studies within five TBKKs and 35 semi-structured interviews with child pornography investigators revealed that managing their heavy caseloads, classifying abusive images, dealing with suspects and conducting home searches can sometimes be (very) challenging. Despite these demanding work aspects, investigators experience low levels of stress. By employing emotional detachment, self-reflection, workload regulation, social support and meaningfulness, they overcome the stress of investigating internet child exploitation. However, successful implementation of these resilience-enhancing strategies depends on the availability of several individual and organizational resources. To reduce the risk of health problems and to stimulate positive functioning, these resources require permanent investment from police management and investigators themselves.

The right to counsel of juveniles at the stage of police interrogations has gained significant attention since the Salduz ruling of the European Court on Human Rights in 2008. The legislative and policy developments that have taken place since then and that are still ongoing – both on a regional (European) and domestic (Dutch) level – reveal a shared belief that juvenile suspects must be awarded special protection in this phase of the criminal justice proceedings. This calls for a youth-specific approach as fundamentally different from the common approach for adults. At the same time, there seems to be ambivalence concerning the justification and concrete implications of such a youth-specific approach. This article aims to clarify the underlying rationale and significance of a youth specific approach to the right to counsel at the stage of police interrogations on the basis of an interdisciplinary analysis of European Court on Human Rights case law, international children’s rights standards and relevant developmental psychological insights. In addition, this article aims to position this right of juveniles in conflict with the law in the particular context of the Dutch juvenile justice system and provide concrete recommendations to the Dutch legislator.

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?

Honour-related emotions such as shame, guilt, anger, distrust and pride play a critical role in regulating the response to a traumatic event and the severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Crimes with the intent to cause harm to a person include, to a greater or lesser extent, a component to overpower and humiliate. Such traumatic experiences can, especially in more collectivist cultures, lead to a complex mix of posttraumatic guilt and shame. In order to restore honour, posttraumatic shame or guilt can lead to violence. Together with posttraumatic stress symptoms such as flashbacks and hyperarousal it may even lead to excessive violence.

A substantial number of children are confronted with the detention of their mothers. Empirical research shows that these children’s well-being is seriously affected, although no study has been able to assess whether a mother’s detention as such causes long-term damage. On the basis of children’s interests, this article defends the principle that mothers who are actively involved in raising their children should not receive a prison sentence but an alternative punishment, unless continuing care is detrimental to the children or if the legal order or interests of society and its citizens would be disproportionally threatened. The article ends with several practical implications.

Genocide is so cruel and extreme that a first natural reflex is to distance ourselves from the perpetrators and qualify them as deranged criminals, psychopaths and sadists – very different from us ordinary people. Although some of the perpetrators fit this description, most perpetrators are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who commit so-called crimes of obedience. A genocidal regime is usually led by a criminal mastermind, who is supported by a number of fanatics and opportunistic careerists who take advantage of the situation to make themselves a career. Many of these perpetrators are special cases who deliberately participated in the genocide. Perpetrators in the middle cadre as well as the rank and file members are however often very ordinary people who just go along and follow the flow out of ideological conviction, fear or material gain.

Reciprocity seems to figure as a self-evident normative foundation of legal orders. Yet a clear understanding of the often opaque role that reciprocity plays in this regard demands drawing a conceptual distinction. This article views reciprocity as a social morality of duties, in opposition to mutuality, which concerns a legal morality of rights. In everyday life these two broad categories of human interaction interfere in a dynamic way. They need to be brought into an appropriate balance in legal orders, for the sake of justice. The practical relevance of this conceptual distinction is clarified by the debate about justice between present and future generations. I argue that this debate should be viewed as a debate about the terms of reciprocity rather than relations of mutuality. Acknowledging the deeply reciprocal nature of the relations between past, present and future generations would lead to a more convincing moral theory about intergenerational justice.

Hip-hop and restorative justice may seem odd bedfellows, but according to Antony Pemberton they have more in common than many would assume. In the first place hip-hop shares a common history, at least with restorative justice's modern incarnations, spanning four decades, to become a similarly global phenomenon. Much of the social ecology shaping RJ is similar to hiphop. In addition hiphop's criticism of criminal justice almost goes without saying. Almost no source offers similar scathing critique of criminal justice and penal institutions as rap lyrics. Pemberton concludes that rituals in hip-hop are connected with the need to deal with conflict. The way respect and disrespect can coincide in rap-battles might offer insights in the way similar dialectics can be navigated within restorative justice processes. The extent to which this is possible is necessarily limited. Pemberton finds that hip-hop – with the exception of graffiti- does not seem currently to criticize the key neo-liberal values of the American Zeitgeist. The much maligned chasm between the old-school and the new school can be situated in this observation. Where hip-hop, as a social movement, used to deploy the depiction of injustice as a means to underline the necessity of social change, the current motto appears to be rich or die tryin”. The life of the thug and the gangsta is depicted as the epitome of the American Dream. Here Pemberton sees grounds for a cautionary warning for restorative justice, which is nurtured by a similar neo-liberal undercurrent in a number of jurisdictions.

Life of a Hunter (c.1647) is an extraordinary painting by the young Dutch artist Paulus Potter. Its fourteen panels tell the tale of a well-heeled gentleman who likes to hunt and to kill “game” and “exotic” animals. The hunting world is turned upside down when the animals capture the hunter and put him on trial. He is condemned to death, roasted alive and doubtless consumed by the very creatures who had earlier been his quarry. In this essay we try to interpret Potter’s painting. Is it an allegory of the chaotic politics of the mid-17th century Dutch Republic? Does it represent an early modern animal trial? Our tentative conclusion is that Life of a Hunter expresses a Montaignian-inspired moment of transition in cultural attitudes towards human-animal relationships: its restricted vision of animal cruelty is not against animal cruelty tout court and its inversion of two links in the great chain of being is very far from being altogether pro-animal.

The politization of the concept of genocide by Western states has been severely criticised, because it has led to an impunity for genocidal crimes. In certain instances however, such criticism has contributed to the dynamic of victimization, instead of resisting it. The article discusses how Professor Edward S. Herman and journalist David Peterson’s staunch criticism of the politics of genocide amounts to a brazen denial of the genocide against the Tutsi which recycles much of the extremist discourse of the former Rwandan authorities that were implicated in genocide. In this case Herman and Peterson’s resistance against the politics of genocide has profound implications, several of which the article will address.

The Dutch abbreviation ‘ZSM’ literally means ASAP. In the Dutch criminal justice system, it stands for a response to a crime ‘as speedy, selective, smart and supportive for victims as possible’. The project was initiated by the Public Prosecution Service and the Police, and it also involves the Dutch Probation Services, Victim Support Netherlands and the Child Care and Protection Board. The goal of ZSM is to assure meaningful and fast interventions, based on quality and effectiveness for society, including suspects and victims. To reach this goal, the Public Prosecutor is situated at the front of the criminal justice chain and triages the high volume crimes to determine the best procedure for a case, in cooperation with the partners.

This article examines the importance of the social evidence base in relation to the development of the law. It argues that there is a need for those lawyers who play a part in law reform (legislators and those involved in the law reform process) and for those who play a part in formulating policy-based common law rules (judges and practitioners) to know more about how facts are established in the social sciences. It argues that lawyers need sufficient knowledge and skills in order to be able to critically assess the facts and evidence base when examining new legislation and also when preparing, arguing and determining the outcomes of legal disputes. For this reason the article argues that lawyers need enhanced training in empirical methodologies in order to function effectively in modern legal contexts.

This contribution explores the possibility of teaching international law in a critical fashion. I examine whether the training which is taking place at law schools is establishing and sustaining a cultural hegemony (a term borrowed from Antonio Gramsci). I ask whether the current focus on technical practice-oriented teaching is a condition which should be questioned, even disrupted? In my thoughts on reorientations of this culture, a central term is the German word Bildung. Bildung refers to knowledge and education as an end in itself (John Dewey) as well as an organic process (Hegel), and therefore incorporates a wider understanding than the English word ‘education’. In terms of international law, a notion of Bildung allows us to acknowledge the political nature of the discipline; it may even allow us to ‘politicize’ our students.