In this article, we analyze which aspects of performance theory and the procedural justice-based model are explaining the trust of shopkeepers in the police and local government. Utilizing a survey of 156 shopkeepers and 94 semi-constructed interviews with shopkeepers, which are located at the South Shopping Boulevard in Rotterdam (The Netherlands), the study finds that shopkeepers have a relatively high trust in the police and local government. This is surprising because various attempts in the past 30 years to revive the high street by the government have failed to improve its bad image, as dwindling visitor numbers, poor turnover, limited range of retailers, empty shops and high crime and offence levels show only too plainly. The findings also highlight that ethnic minority respondents have more trust in local government than Dutch shopkeepers. The explanation therefor is sought in the dual frame of reference theory.

Traditionally, the mayor has an important role as a citizen’s father and as a maintainer of public order. In the context of the so-called ‘undermining’ criminality, the mayor has been increasingly empowered with new legal instruments to combat undermining criminality. Some mayors see themselves as a sheriff. However, in the Dutch Municipal Act, the mayor only has a task of maintaining the public order. How does this task relate to combating undermining criminality? What is the role of the mayor in the combat of undermining criminality? Nowadays, there is no legal basis in the Dutch Municipal Act to equip the mayor with crime-fighting duties. This article proposes to equip the mayor with a legal duty as a crime fighter.

Since society was secularized, the values of democracy based on the rule of law seem to have the best (potential) binding force for social cohesion. These values are linked to Christianity however. The relation between both will be explained by a critical review of Larry Siedentops Inventing the individual and Olivier Roy’s l’Europe est-elle chrétienne?

Is the concept of ‘retribution’ compatible with restorative justice? Starting from the perspective that retribution is an imperative given and that restorative justice should be a preferent option in coping with crime, the concept of retribution needs to be redesigned. Rethinking retribution needs to take into account the hypersensitive nature and complexity of modern society. Apparently incompatible interests need to be reconciled, paying tribute to the citizenship of both the victim and the perpetrator. Notwithstanding censure to be in place, implying the infliction of ‘pain’, the aim must lie in a reconstruction of civil relationships affirming the victim and the perpetrator to be part of the community. Standards applied must reflect objectivity, implying proportionate punishment, with a preference towards restorative justice because it is the more subsidiary option. Thus, retribution notwithstanding the imperative and painful nature of retribution, the execution should pursue the reconstruction of (civil) relationships.

This article discusses the concepts of society and community involvement as they appeared in the articles of the Dutch-Flemish Tijdschrift voor Herstelrecht (Journal of Restorative Justice) during last 20 years. It shows how the journal from its very beginning adopted a strong focus on criminal justice reform, although restorative practices within the community occupied a considerable space in the consecutive volumes as well. Studies on restorative justice programmes in Belgium and The Netherlands, such as victim-offender mediation and family-group conferences, revealed a predominant orientation on interpersonal relationships stressing the role of the community of care. In the same sense, also community mediation and other community oriented restorative practices focus on the personal well-being of people and the improvement of personal and social relationships. Hence, both theory and practice face two important challenges in developing restorative justice: (1) which role to give to a larger community and how to operationalize its involvement, and (2) how to deal with underlying causes of crime and social-structural injustices? Referring to European action-research projects and to conceptual models developed outside Europe, a case is made for designing restorative justice methodologies and programmes involving civil society in a more encompassing way and linking micro to macro societal levels. Developing strategic alliances with new social movements could be the way forward.

This article states that the social and political context in which restorative justice is situated, needs more attention. The polarized rhetoric of populists with their plea for more state control and repression does not fit with the restorative approach with its emphasis on inclusion and social responsibility of active citizens. The author suggests that the paradigm of ‘positive security’ as coined by Marc Schuilenburg and others could function as a base for an alternative, more constructive and inclusive ‘big story’ on crime and security that is more akin to restorative justice. Aspects of current social protest movements as the MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter and climate demonstrations could be integrated in this ‘big story’, also to prevent that restorative justice is viewed only as a quick fix to soothe symptoms and not address political and social root causes of injustice. In this way, the international restorative justice movement could widen its scope.

The overexploitation of nature has led to anthropogenic defaunation, which results in complex socioeconomic, political and ecological consequences. Influenced by the economic growth of modernization and the interconnectedness of globalization, zoonotic diseases emerge as incalculable side effects of defaunation. By rejecting anthropocentric worldviews, this article critically examines anthropogenic defaunation and the causes and consequences of the coronavirus pandemic from a green criminological perspective.

De Inspectie Justitie en Veiligheid (Inspectie JenV) houdt toezicht op de politie. In dit artikel kijken we of dat toezicht voldoet aan daaraan te stellen eisen van selectiviteit, responsiviteit en prudentie. Aan de hand van de zaak Hümeyra concluderen we dat de Inspectie JenV kennelijk niet heeft overwogen om de evaluatie over te laten aan interne of (andere) externe toezichthouders en zich ook niet heeft gebaseerd op een voorafgaande risicoanalyse (selectiviteit). Daarnaast heeft de Inspectie JenV haar onderzoek maar zeer beperkt in dialoog en interactie met de politie uitgevoerd en niet (ook) het perspectief vanuit de politie in beeld gebracht (responsiviteit). Bovendien heeft de Inspectie JenV geen rekening gehouden met de bijzondere positie van de politie (prudentie).

The first part of this article presents three academic theories on radicalisation: Moghaddam’s staircase model of radicalisation, Galtung’s typology of violence (direct, structural and cultural violence), and Staub’s psycho-educative approach. The core of Staub’s approach is that in conflict periods, people can be psychologically manipulated through their own fears, insecurities and unresolved traumas. Therefore, psycho-education and the empowerment of people are highly necessary to stimulate citizens to function as active bystanders when they are confronted with wrongdoing. In the second part of this article some promising approaches are pres­en‍ted which might increase personal and social resilience. The role of narratives in understanding experiences and changing identities is discussed. Radio La Benevolencija in Rwanda uses the power of storytel­l‍ing to stimulate resilience among the population. In the concluding paragraph a two-pronged strategy on radicalization is presented. This positive criminological perspective aims to promote active bystandership, participation and resilience.

Reports by citizens are a great source of information for the police. Local residents often know well what is going on in their neighborhood and which situations are suspicious. In this study, an online survey was conducted to investigate what drives citizens to report to the police. A wide range of individual, social and institutional drivers were explored. The results show that the more often people have reported anything to the police in the past, the higher their risk perception, self-efficacy, citizen participation and police legitimacy. Furthermore, participants with a higher degree of self-efficacy, response efficacy, trust in the police and police legitimacy appeared to be more willing to report in the future. An open question regarding what motivates people the most to report show that response efficacy (the idea to what extent reporting has an effect on increasing safety and reducing crime) and altruistic values (justice, to help society and punish the perpetrators) were mentioned most frequently.

Citizen engagement in public safety is increasing rapidly. This trend, also known as responsibilisation, causes new dilemmas for (local) goverments. This article is based on a case study on a local group in the Dutch municipality Neder-Betuwe. These vigilantes arrest suspects by using extensive and professional equipment. By using the theory of normative practices this article compares the practices of the vigilantes and the local police. Their attitude to themes as safety, community values and the core values of the Dutch rule of law differs. This puts pressure on cooperation between vigilantes and police officers.

In former times, citizens themselves were responsible for ensuring and protecting their own safety. Over the years, this responsibility largely shifted to the government, partly due to the establishment of an institutionalized police force. In recent years, citizens have increasingly reestablishing themselves in domain of social security. Citizens are engaged in tasks that are traditionally seen as primarily the responsibility of the police, such as law enforcement, criminal investigation and immediate in case of emergencies.
Technology can be considered as one of the major driving forces behind this increasing contribution of citizens in the field of security. Technology makes it possible to quickly find and share information and enhances people’s ability to deal with cognitively complex tasks. In a certain way, technology democratizes police work by making the skills and tools available for every citizen.
In this article we will discuss the value of a specific form of technological support for citizens in their search for missing persons: the missing persons app ‘Sarea’. The Netherlands has a high number of missing persons and in many incidents citizens start searching themselves. Often, this citizen initiatives are uncoordinated. Therefore, an app has been developed by the police to help citizens start and coordinate their own searches for a missing person.

It is often assumed that digital neighbourhood watch groups lead to more emergency calls and more arrests by the police. This article revolves around the question whether or not these groups actually contribute to reducing crime in the Netherlands. It does so by looking at recent studies and the results of researchers’ own ‘realist evaluation’ of the city of Rotterdam’s policy on digital neighbourhood watch. The latter includes a reconstruction of the program theory and ten case studies with different types of groups. The reconstruction of program theory revealed two main routes to crime reduction: 1) more emergency calls and more arrests by the police and 2) more social control. Chat histories have been studied and moderators, participants, non-participants and professionals were interviewed on their perception of active mechanisms and on the efficacy of their group. None of the respondents believed their group led to an increased number of arrests, but interviews and chat histories show that crime can be reduced by means of social control. Social control by neighbours limits the opportunity for crime and disturbs criminal acts. Other studies in the Netherlands support this finding. The article closes by putting digital neighbourhood watch in a citizen’s perspective with suggestions to improve the efficacy of digital neighbourhood watch groups and the notion that for citizens, crime reduction is not the only or principal goal.

Undermining has become a buzz-word in Dutch politics and security governance. On national and local level there is great concern about the disappearing lines between the legal and illegal world, which affects the democratic order and rule of law in the Netherlands. Hence, everything possible should be done in order to combat the creeping threat of undermining. However, what is undermining actually? And why has the concept become so popular now? In this contribution, the authors will consider those and other relevant key questions about the rise and effect of the undermining concept to provide more conceptual clarity. By critically reflecting on undermining as a speech act, that is ‘underminization’ (cf. securitization), and based on empirical research, the authors suggest that there are two discourses at work that hinder the effectivity of the concept: one is specifically focused on the drugs industry with its illegal activities and one broadens the concept into unlawful and undesired developments that interfere with societal stability. The authors conclude that the concept of undermining may mobilize at policy level, yet seems to paralyze at operational level.

Naar aanleiding van een door socioloog Bas van Stokkom georganiseerde conferentie over de grenzen van slachtofferemancipatie schetst de auteur een korte mentaliteitsgeschiedenis van de versterkte positie van het slachtoffer in strafrecht en samenleving sinds de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Het woord slachtoffer heeft niet alleen in verschillende tijden maar ook in verschillende contexten een andere lading gekregen. De auteur behandelt de vraag waar de theoretische en praktische grenzen van de emancipatie van het slachtoffer in het strafrecht liggen.

This article focuses on the challenges associated with public-private partnerships in tackling drug crime in the port of Rotterdam. The authors identified the actors involved in the fight against drug crime and, more generally, security in the port. The authors show how these various actors view the subject of drug crime (so-called mentalities), what they set as objectives (finalities) and how they try to achieve these objectives. Subsequently the various aspects of the interactions between these actors are being analyzed. The article is empirically based on 76 interviews with public and private actors in the port of Rotterdam, that were conducted in the period from January 2018 to February 2019, and an analysis of literature, news items, government reports and other documents.

Two developments are discussed that have a significant influence on the scope and content of the penology of the future, but otherwise have little to do with each other: The expansion of the sentencing field has resulted in a completely fluid research field. However, the important questions of penology can only be answered by integrally mapping and analyzing that sentencing field. For that reason, penology should radically free itself of the limitation of its field of research to the penal sanction. Ongoing insight into the functioning of the brain and the predictability of behavior on the basis of algorithms shine a different light on the portraits of mankind on which we base punishment. It also exposes a range of new possibilities to influence behavior and prevent criminal behavior. It is also part of the research field of penology to question which of those possibilities we want to use and under which conditions.

The promises of Big Data, predictive policing and artificial intelligence hold a key position in the public debate for quite some time now. Optimists tell that it is possible to predict where criminal events will occur before they take place. This would implicate a major shift towards a crime and insecurity preventive society, feeding on our cultural longing for a secure future. Therefore we give algorithms and deep learning access to more and more aspects of our lives. But how realistic and desirable is the application of Big Data techniques in the area of security?
In this article we put focus on the research question ‘In which way can Big Data and predictive policing support good governance of security?’, that has led our study. By exploring the central concepts, the processes behind them and their results in the domain of public security, we conclude that there are only rather disappointing results from the application of these techniques: crime and insecurity have not dropped when the police and other organizations turned to Big Data techniques. Instead, many negative side effects occurred. We search for explanations in six central academic critiques on the application of these techniques in the area of security.
We have found several ways to guaranty principles of good governance in the application of Big Data techniques, but these require a firm paradigm shift on Big Data in general. The heuristics of security professionals should not be overshadowed by technological promises: the professional should always be in the loop, must understand the way predictions come into existence and must be able to correct flaws and bugs of (semi-)automated decisions. We conclude that safeguarding public security must remain human work in which Big Data techniques can assist.