Although group workers in juvenile correctional facilities (JCFs) are restricted in their actions by many rules and regulations, they still have the opportunity for tailor-made actions. Based on Lipsky’s (2010) theory of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ this article explains what this discretion means for group workers in JCFs and how they deal with it. Based on 24 interviews with group workers, this article outlines how they exercise discretion in a context where group dynamics and dealing with emotions affect their actions to an important degree. In addition, this article describes how group workers deal with dilemmas they encounter.

Fighting outlaw motorcycle gangs is currently one of the top priorities of many governments around the world. This is due to the notion that outlaw motorcycle gangs do not consist solely of motorcycle enthusiasts. Numerous cases reveal that these clubs, or at least their members, are involved in (organised) crime. In order to tackle these clubs, the former Dutch Minister of Security and Justice announced a whole-of-government strategy towards outlaw motorcycle gangs in 2012. As part of this effort, authorities such as the Dutch National Police, the Public Prosecution Service, the Dutch Tax Authority and local governments aim to cooperate in order to disrupt and restrict outlaw motorcycle gangs by means of Criminal, Administrative and Civil Law. Part of this strategy is to hinder club-related events. This article discusses the latter strategy in light of the distinction between prevention and pre-emption. As the latter two concepts are often used interchangeably, this article attempts to use a more strict division between prevention and pre-emption. Thereby, it becomes apparent that outlaw motorcycle gangs are to some extent governed through uncertainty. The author suggests that maintaining the ‘prevention–pre-emption distinction’ can offer an interesting and valuable point of departure for analysing today’s crime policies.

Quantitative empirical research into legal decisions must be conducted using statistical tools that are appropriate for the data involved. Court decisions are one example of a domain where the data is intrinsically hierarchical (i.e., multilevel), since decisions are made on individual cases by decision-makers in courts located across geographical (or jurisdictional) areas. Past research into court decisions has often either neglected higher level variables or incorrectly used single-level statistical models to analyze multilevel data. The lack of a clear understanding about when and why multilevel statistical models are required may have contributed to this situation. In this paper, we identify the problems of estimating single-level models on hierarchically structured data, and consider the advantages of conducting multilevel analyses under these circumstances. We use the example of criminal sentencing research to illustrate the arguments for the use of multilevel models and against a single-level approach. We also highlight some issues to be addressed in future sentencing studies.

This article examines the main assumptions and theoretical underpinnings of case study method in legal studies. It considers the importance of research design, including the crucial roles of the academic literature review, the research question and the use of rival theories to develop hypotheses and the practice of identifying the observable implications of those hypotheses. It considers the selection of data sources and modes of analysis to allow for valid analytical inferences to be drawn in respect of them. In doing so it considers, in brief, the importance of case study selection and variations such as single or multi case approaches. Finally it provides thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses associated with undertaking socio-legal and comparative legal research via a case study method, addressing frequent stumbling blocks encountered by legal researchers, as well as ways to militate them. It is written with those new to the method in mind.

In dit artikel worden de nieuwe strafbaarstellingen uit de Wet herziening strafbaarstelling faillissementsfraude, inhoudende een inlichtingen- en administratieplicht, in het licht van het nemo-teneturbeginsel geanalyseerd. Deze strafbaarstellingen verplichten de failliet inlichtingen en administratie over te dragen aan de curator op straffe van een gevangenisstraf. De vraag is of deze strafbaarstellingen de Straatsburgse toets kunnen doorstaan.

In 2012, China revised its Criminal Procedure Law (2012 CPL). One of the major changes is its official approval of the use of victim-offender reconciliation, or ‘criminal reconciliation’ in certain public prosecution cases. This change, on the one hand, echoes the Confucian doctrine that favours harmonious inter-personal relationships and mediation, while, on the other hand, it deviates from the direction of legal reforms dating from the 1970s through the late 1990s. Questions have emerged concerning not only the cause of this change in legal norms but also the proper position of criminal reconciliation in the current criminal justice system in China. The answers to these questions largely rely on understanding the role of traditional informal dispute resolution as well as its interaction with legal norms. Criminal reconciliation in ancient China functioned as a means to centralise imperial power by decentralizing decentralising its administration. Abolishing or enabling such a mechanism in law is merely a small part of the government’s strategy to react to political or social crises and to maintain social stability. However, its actual effect depends on the vitality of Confucianism, which in turn relies on the economic foundation and corresponding structure of society.

This article deals with the topic of the life imprisonment in the Netherlands. The court Noord-Nederland judged that life imprisonment in the Netherlands doesn’t meet the criteria of the ECtHR, especially the ‘prospect of release of life prisoners. In this article I place the court’s decision in a context of national law and case-law (national, and international). In my opinion, there is still a prospect of release, because of the many independent judicial bodies and procedures that are involved to the decision to grant (or not) a pardon and the new developments in the penitentiary law.

In this article I argue that the major issue in taxonomies of interdisciplinary research is the problem of authority. In a project on the needs of Aboriginal Australians in inheritance, involving interdisciplinary research using law (in both common law and customary law form) and anthropology, issues of translateability and truth/validity arose. Issues for the Aboriginal people included problems of identifying the correct kin, dealing with the body, and protecting customary law information and secrecy, all matters which the customary law could handle but which were not recognised by Australian common law. Because the characterization of these matters in law is often characterized as a problem of authority the article explores the various different ways forms of authority in law and anthropology exist and how they might clash. Because the anthropology concerned was about Aboriginal Customary Law there seemed to be a double problem of authority which needed to be resolved in order to ensure that the connections between the disciplines were clear and the inheritance issues could be resolved.

Het nemo-teneturbeginsel en het zwijgrecht zijn internationaal erkende onderdelen van het eerlijk-procesrecht. Deze rechten spelen een belangrijke rol in zaken waarin sfeercumulatie en/of -overgang bestaat van het bestuurs- en het strafrecht. Vaak gaat het dan om in een administratieve procedure verplicht afgelegde verklaring of overdragen document dat ook als bewijs voor een strafbaar feit in een strafzaak wordt gebruikt. De precieze betekenis van en afscheiding tussen het nemo-teneturbeginsel en het zwijgrecht wordt al jaren bediscussieerd. Daarom wordt in dit artikel de rechtspraak van het EHRM en de Hoge Raad met betrekking tot deze rechten vergelijken.

In the Netherlands, the judge has the possibility to impose an entirely or partly suspended sentence. In this article, the perspective of judges and public prosecutors on the deterrent effect of the suspended sentence is investigated. For that purpose, 1000 court decisions were examined, and 15 judges and 15 public prosecutors were interviewed. The results show that the suspended sentence provides opportunities to intervene in the offender’s life regarding issues that are supposed to be related to recidivism. Judges and public prosecutors regard the suspended sentence as an important device to reduce the recidivism risk.

Becker’s theory on crime and punishment provides guidelines for designing an optimal law enforcement policy. In designing such a policy the costs of law enforcement should be traded-off against the benefits that originate in deterring criminal acts. We investigate whether law enforcement policy in the Netherlands is consistent with this guidelines. Since policy makers are not very precise on the goals of law enforcement policy and hardly anything is known about the effectiveness and efficiency of instruments, it turns out to be impossible to say whether law enforcement policy actually contributes to social welfare. This is not necessarily problematic if, in line with the efficient law hypothesis, law enforcement automatically converges to an efficient outcome. Furthermore, Becker’s theory appears to miss a crucial element by not taking account of existing preferences for retribution. If utility is derived from seeing that justice is done, this should be included in the welfare criterion. Assuming policy makers prefer welfare enhancing law enforcement, they would be well-advised to start systematically collecting information on the effectiveness and efficiency of instruments of law enforcement policy.

Op 13 augustus 2015 publiceerde de Federal Trade Commission een beknopt document met uitgangspunten voor de handhaving van ‘Section 5’ van de Federal Trade Commission Act. Het gaat hier om de handhaving van het verbod op, onder meer, ‘Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce’, een bepaling die deels, maar zeker niet volledig overlapt met Section 1 en 2 van de Sherman Act, de Amerikaanse versies van ons kartelverbod en misbruikverbod. Deze korte bijdrage schetst het ‘Statement of Enforcement Principles’ en werpt de vraag op of een ‘Europees Section 5’ aantrekkelijk zou zijn.

An ‘independent contractor’ working for a company in a subordinate relationship should be considered as a de facto employee. In such a situation, the company and its legal representatives can be held liable for ‘concealed work’ and be subject to criminal penalties.

A 60-year old widow with a house but without income other than a small widow’s pension has successfully challenged legislation that moved the qualification age for state pension benefits from 65 to 67. A court has found that, in her particular case, the legislation constitutes an “individual and excessive burden” within the meaning of ECtHR case law on the First Protocol to the ECHR. The government was ordered to start paying the widow state pension from age 65 despite and contrary to the wording of the law.

Although good and stable housing is one of the requirements for successful reintegration, research on the relation between imprisonment and housing is scarce. This study gains insight into the housing situation of Dutch prisoners before and after their incarceration. Data are used from 886 male Prison Project participants, who were interviewed both during and six months after detention. Changes in housing appear to be common; 52 percent of the prisoners has a different housing situation after release (compared to before detention). Changes in housing remain frequent during the six months post-release. The importance of good aftercare in the transition from prison to stable housing is underlined by these results.

This paper uses the UK as a vehicle through which to argue that a dominant reductionist drugs discourse exists which simplifies understandings of drug use and drug users leading to socio-cultural misrepresentations of harm, risk and dangerousness. It contends that at the centre of this discourse lies the process of othering – the identification of specific substances and substance users as a threat to UK society. Interestingly, within the wider context of global drug policy reform this othering process appears to be expanding to target a wider variety of factors and actors – those policies, research findings and individuals which contest normative notions, resulting in the marginalisation of ‘alternative voices’ which question the entrenched assumptions associated with drug prohibition. The paper concludes that there is a need for collective action by critical scholars to move beyond the other, calling for academics to be innovative in their research agendas, creative in their dissemination of knowledge and resolute despite the threat of being othered themselves.

In this article we examine which factors are correlated to the rehabilitation of prisoners. Central is the prisoners’ willingness during their imprisonment to work on a successful return in society. Assumptions derived from the theory were statistically tested with data from the Dutch Detainee Survey 2014; a large-scale study, in which prisoners held in all Dutch penitentiary institutions (N = 29) were surveyed (n = 2120). The results are in line with the theory and show that detainees are more positive about their (potential for) rehabilitation when they are more satisfied with a) the way they are treated by correctional officers (staff orientation); b) active deployment of the so-called Detention and Re-integration Plan; c) their daily program and activities, and; d) the experienced autonomy and personal decision-making. These outcomes offer fruitful perspectives on how the prison system can promote a successful return of prisoners in our society.