Uit de empirische praktijk blijkt dat het Nederlandse parlement in het kader van de Europese subsidiariteitscontrole een functie uitoefent die sterk lijkt op de rol van de Raad van State binnen Nederland. Het parlement geeft een wetgevingsadvies dat voor de Europese instellingen weliswaar niet absoluut bindend is, maar waarop zij verplicht zijn om te wachten voordat zij het wetgevingsproces voortzetten. Bezwaren van nationale parlementen kunnen weliswaar niet tot amendement of intrekking van een Europees wetsvoorstel verplichten, maar kunnen een hermotivering uitlokken.

Labeling van jongeren in het jeugdstrafrecht kan leiden tot stigmatisering. Stigmatisering van jongeren moet voor zover mogelijk worden voorkomen, ook in het jeugdstrafrecht. Verschillende recente ontwikkelingen in het jeugdstrafrecht, zoals de toenemende neiging om jongeren met probleemgedrag te registreren in databases en om naar aanleiding van dit gedrag in casusoverleggen met deelnemers afkomstig uit jeugdstrafrecht en (jeugd)zorg in brede zin gegevens uit te wisselen, leiden mogelijk tot meer stigmatisering van de jeugdige (verdachte). De ontwikkelingen die wij in deze bijdrage beschrijven zijn registratiesystemen, met name ProKid en JCO Support, justitiële documentatie en Halt-afdoeningen, casusoverleggen in de Veiligheidshuizen en groepsgerichte aanpakken. Deze probleemgebieden tasten de privacy van de minderjarige (verdachte) aan en leiden in mindere of meerdere mate tot stigmatisering. Wij zullen voor elke ontwikkeling bespreken in hoeverre sprake is van (te veel) stigmatisering en zo ja of en hoe dit zo veel mogelijk kan worden beperkt.

In this article, the role and functioning of the Flemish mayor is analysed from a Dutch perspective. Three observations are considered noteworthy and discussed elaborately: the role of the mayor in internal local politics, the mayor's relationship with the local community, and the possible combination of several political mandates. The article shows that mayors can be more political without being directly elected (which is the case both in Flanders and the Netherlands) and that there is considerable room for mayors to give meaning to their job. In showing the similarities and differences between Dutch and Flemish mayors, this article is meant to inspire both policy makers and Dutch mayors and to contribute to the debate about the future of the Dutch mayor.

The article aims to illustrate the importance of the mayor in times of disaster and crisis management. The mayor plays a crucial role, even though he is merely one link in the crisis management process. In the Netherlands, the organization and coordination of crisis management is subdivided into 25 safety regions. Recently there has been a strong development towards professionalization of these safety regions and their partners. However, in the case of a local crisis all attention goes to the mayor, whose decisions and actions are critically followed by the media and the public. In order to identify what would constitute a good mayor in times of crisis, the article lists essential points and qualities. In sum, a good mayor in times of crisis should be critical and show managerial courage.

Starting a decade ago, police authorities in Western Europe have been dealing with (South)Eastern European gangs coming over to Western Europe. These gangs commit a large number of property crimes and are characterised by their high level of mobility. Yet, this raises questions as to how their mobility has to be interpreted: is it temporary, making them criminal tourists, or are there any migration mechanisms involved? This article is based on interviews with offenders charged with selling criminal goods (i.e. fencing). Fencing activities appear to take place either in Western Europe or in the countries of origin. Alongside these activities, their centre of social activity appears to be located in either one of them as well. This heterogeneity indicates there is little added value in combating the Eastern European crime gangs, because different offender types with a different background are involved.

Using the concept of chronocentrism, the doctrine that what is current must somehow be superior to what went on before, that ideas, scholars and scholarship inevitably become stale and discredited over time, the author argues the rise and attraction of nodal governance and nodal security fits the definition of chronocentrism. The recent ‘discovery’ of a multitude of (semi-)public agencies and private sector actors performing police functions neglect the fact that many of these agencies and actors have a long standing history (sometimes more than a century) and have been subject of many academic studies. Moreover, these studies are richer in their theoretical foundations because of the explanations they give for different functions, goals, interests, cultures and operational styles of public policing, administrative policing and private policing than much of the current language. In many ways nodal governance and nodal security are new labels for ongoing processes of gradual interweaving of different forms of policing. For this reason the use of these concepts is useful in two ways. First, for policy makers and practitioners. For them the new concepts seem to have a function as a motivational strategy. For instance, what was called increasing cooperation in the justice system (ketensamenwerking) and public-private cooperation in the eighties and nineties are revitalized using new labels. Second, nodal governance and nodal security, in the academic community ‘forces’ us to rethink the very notion of policing. Policing increasingly takes place in hybrid organizations and processes in which boundaries between public administration, public policing, regulatory agencies and private security are blurring.

In recent years it has become popular in political discourse and academic literature to talk about the blurring boundaries between transnational terrorism and organized crime. In addition, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 have instigated a debate on the link between transnational terrorism and state failure. This article scrutinizes this so-called ‘black hole’ thesis and its relationship to the crime-terror nexus by addressing the political significance of such conceptual blurring within an international context that is increasingly characterized by uncertainty and uncontrollable risks.