Problematic debt has a large impact on people’s lives and tends to escalate quickly, making early detection and debt prevention crucial. Debt prevention is a mix of measures, activities and provisions aimed at ensuring that people acquire financial skills and that they are capable and actually behave financially sound, so that their finances are and remain in order. So people have to be financially literate and have financial skills, but they also have to be able to act at the right time in the right way. There is currently not enough attention for these three elements in legislation and regulations.

In dit artikel gaat de auteur in op de toepassing van art. 159 lid 2 Rv en andere juridische aspecten van een stellige ontkenning van een elektronische ondertekening. Hij betoogt dat toepassing van deze bepaling ook bij een stellige ontkenning van een elektronische handtekening tot resultaten kan leiden waarmee de praktijk uit de voeten kan als haar reikwijdte wordt beperkt tot de waarheid van de ondertekende verklaring.

Een bekend kenmerk van Scholtens beschouwingswijze was zijn dialectiek.
Langemeijer heeft de aard ervan scherp geduid, maar erkend in het duister te tasten over haar oorsprong en bronnen. Hegel en Barth komen niet in aanmerking. Ik wijs op de betekenis die de theoloog P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye (1848-1920) gehad kan hebben voor de ontwikkeling van Scholtens denken, zowel inhoudelijk als qua dialectiek. Sommige contemporaine auteurs lijken Scholten schatplichtig te achten aan Kierkegaard; ik acht dat te speculatief. Moderne digitale technologie opent potentieel grote mogelijkheden voor de toepassing van computers en artificiële intelligentie (AI) in de rechtspleging. Scholtens dialectiek stelt ons voor fundamentele rechtsfilosofische vragen ten aanzien van de mogelijkheid en wenselijkheid van ‘rechtspraak door computers’.

In this article the author asserts, based on his own experiences in this field, that the independence of research and researchers is not a given, but must always be conquered and defended. He relates the necessity of doing commissioned research to developments in Dutch legal academia and describes its strengths and weaknesses. He then makes the comparison with ‘pure’ academic research. He shows that most lecturers must fight and defend their independence against all sorts of developments within the modern university. There is not much room anymore to do one’s own free research. He concludes that neither academic nor commissioned research takes place in a vacuum without power relations.

Previous research showed that job applicants with a criminal record have lower chances of obtaining employment compared to job applicants with no criminal record. At the same time empirical studies showed that having a job is especially beneficial for ex-delinquents, as employment was found to lower recidivism. The current study uses an experimental design to look into the influence of a criminal record on employment chances. For this purpose, 520 resumes and motivation letters were sent in response to vacancies published on the internet. All were identical except for the stated offence type (no offence, violent offence, property offence, or sexual offence), duration between conviction and application, business sector and ethnicity of the applicant. Results show no effect for type of offence or no offence on employment chances. However, a strong effect is found for ethnicity. Ethnic minorities with no conviction were even found to have lower chances of receiving a positive reaction compared to applicants with a Dutch name and a conviction for a violent offence.

In this paper we examine to what extent a prison record negatively affects employment and accommodation outcomes after release from prison. Two randomized field experiments were conducted in which we had fictitious persons respond by email to online job openings and online advertisements for rented accommodations. In total, we responded to 384 job openings and to 231 advertisements for rented accommodations. Contrary to expectations, applicants with a prison record were not less likely to receive a positive response from employers than applicants without a prison record. Applicants with a non-western background, however, were less likely to receive a positive response. In the housing experiment, we did find a significant effect of having a prison record. Former prisoners were less likely to receive a positive response during their search for a place to live.

Does biocriminology by definition corrode the image of human beings as ‘free’ in the sense of being autonomous and responsible? This article focuses on modern biocriminological research and discusses important aspects in which current biocriminological insights differ from historical perspectives on biology and criminal behaviour. Three aspects are discussed: plasticity, integration and conscious/unconscious processes. Illustrating their case with empirical research examples the authors argue that modern biocriminological research does not consider human beings as ‘unfree’. Instead, research shows that biological characteristics are subject to change and that biological insights are complementary to more traditional psychological and sociological perspectives. Finally, the authors argue that recognizing the biological influences on human behaviour should not be viewed as a threat to autonomy, but instead should be considered as an enrichment of our understanding of human behaviour, and may therefore even increase autonomy.

For the occasion of the 40 ^th anniversary of the Netherlands’ Society of Criminology the author has analysed the Society’s archive and related the development of this professional organisation to the development of Dutch criminology in the period between 1974 and 2014. He distinguishes five turning points in this respect: between 1965 and 1974 we witnessed the emancipation of criminology as an autonomous discipline; the period 1978-1985 is characterised by a downfall of criminology at the universities; between 1992 and 1995 a period of restoration started, that is characterised by a focus on criminology’s policy-relevance; from 1999 to 2010 we can witness a recovery, in which academic criminology raised like a phoenix from its ashes; and from that time on we see the discipline broadening up again, in which the dominance of positivist research agendas is countered by a cultural criminology and a more critical attitude towards the production-oriented research policy in general. The bottom line is that the Society followed these trends imperceptibly: it was active when criminology did well and was ‘in rest’ when it did not. The article concludes with the question whether the Society has an active role to play in the public debate about the role of science and crime and punishment.

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.

Wie de wet niet louter gebruikt om bestaande normen, zeden en gewoonten te codificeren, maar ook om gedrag te modificeren, zal rekening moeten houden met kennis uit de gedragswetenschappen. Met name gedragseconomisch onderzoek richt zich in toenemende mate op voorspelbaar irrationeel keuzegedrag van burgers. Zogeheten nudges of slimme prikkels worden voorgesteld om het gedrag van burgers te reguleren. De vraag is echter hoe evidence-based nudges zijn, in hoeverre ze wetgeving overbodig maken en of de wetgever überhaupt wel rekening wenst te houden met wetenschappelijke inzichten. In deze bijdrage wordt betoogd dat (wetgevings)juristen veel kunnen leren van recente inzichten uit gedragswetenschappelijk onderzoek, maar dat we er tegelijkertijd ook geen overspannen verwachtingen van moeten koesteren. Bovendien is het van belang om de normatieve vragen die een rol spelen bij het ‘manipuleren’ van keuzegedrag niet uit het oog te verliezen.

De commotie rond de fraude van sociaalpsycholoog Diederik Stapel heeft een smet geworpen op de (sociale) psychologie en meer in het algemeen op de betrouwbaarheid van de wetenschap. Zijn data bleken vaak verzonnen en van de experimenten die wel werden uitgevoerd, werden de uitkomsten ‘opgepompt’. Wat valt er voor wetgevingsjuristen en wetgevingsonderzoekers van deze fraudezaak te leren: zijn rechtswetenschappers in het algemeen minder ‘slodderig’ dan psychologen en hoe bewaken we de kwaliteit van wetgeving of juridische publicaties waarbij gebruik wordt gemaakt van inzichten uit andere disciplines? In deze bijdrage wordt betoogd dat de methodologische basiskennis van juristen de komende jaren op een hoger peil dient te worden gebracht om ervoor te zorgen dat zowel rechtswetenschappers als praktijkjuristen niet te snel ontsporen wanneer zij bijvoorbeeld deskundigenoordelen en empirische data gebruiken in hun werk.

Various leading neuroscientists argue that free will does not exist and that therefore any traditional notion of criminal responsibility is based upon an illusion. This article attempts to make clear that the ‘free will’, which is now empirically denied, is conceptually not the one we use and need in criminal law. The neuroscientific argument depends on the assumption that undetermined causal control is necessary to responsibility. It supposes that someone has no free will when his conscious will is not the ultimate cause of his behaviour. However, the legal practice of criminal responsibility is not rooted in such a metaphysically free will, but on an alternative, more realistic understanding of control, i.e. the capacity sense of control. Criminal law bases responsibility on certain mental capacities people have, for instance the capacity to act for reasons, according to socially constructed standards. The so-called illusion of free will forms therefore not a serious threat to the foundations of our criminal responsibility system.

Een procesrechtelijke bijzonderheid in de ontbindingsprocedure van art. 7:685 BW ziet op de niet integrale toepasselijkheid van het wettelijk bewijsrecht van afdeling 9, titel 2 uit het Wetboek van Burgerlijke Rechtsvordering (Rv). Volgens de memorie van toelichting bij de Wet tot herziening van het burgerlijk procesrecht kan de spoedeisendheid van de ontbindingsprocedure zich tegen toepassing van het wettelijke bewijsrecht verzetten. In dit artikel wordt allereerst betoogd dat niet iedere ontbindingsprocedure per definitie spoedeisend is en zich tegen de toepasselijkheid van het wettelijk bewijsrecht verzet en tevens dat in een spoedeisende ontbindingsprocedure onderscheid moet worden gemaakt tussen bewijsregels die wel en die niet aan een spoedige beslissing in de ontbindingsprocedure in de weg staan. Vervolgens onderzoekt de auteur of de ontbindingsprocedure wat betreft de bewijsvoering in overeenstemming is met art. 6 EVRM en het recht van de Europese Unie.

In this paper delinquent development from age 12 to 32 of 498 juvenile sex offenders is analyzed. Trajectory analysis distinguished five groups: adolescence-limited, adolescence-limited late bloomers, low chronic, high chronic and high declining. These groups are shown to differ on personality, family and background characteristics and type of sampling offenses.Our first conclusion is that juvenile sex offenders generally do not persist in sexual offending. Although the adolescence-limited and low chronic group correspond to Moffitt’s taxonomy, the offenses and characteristics of the groups do not. Therefore, our second conclusion is that juvenile sex offenders criminal careers only partly fit this general theory for delinquent behavior. A special theory for juvenile sex offending is required.

The master thesis Meditation inside the prison system describes the role of mindful meditation practises inside the prison environment. This article shortly summarizes the positive effects of (vipassana) meditation on the mental well-being of prisoners as set out in foreign studies and elaborates on the potential context for meditation programmes inside the Dutch prison system. This context can be found in the legal aim of individual rehabilitation including more intrinsic notions of internal growth and in certain insights of criminological nature. Interviews with several prison managers reveal an open attitude towards the practical integration of meditation programmes.

Het arrest van 23 april 2010 van de Hoge Raad betreft naar de mening van auteurs een voorbeeld van toepassing van een bijzondere regel van omkering van de bewijslast op grond van art. 150 Rv in het kader van een vernietigingsprocedure van een arbitraal vonnis. Het arrest maakt, in meer algemene zin, duidelijk dat de omkering van de bewijslast niet een omkering van de stelplicht betekent. Als sprake is van een bevrijdend verweer dient daarop een beroep te worden gedaan, ongeacht de omkering van de bewijslast. Het arrest schijnt ook licht op andere bevrijdende verweren waarbij de bewijslast is omgekeerd, zoals de klachtplicht ex art. 7:23 BW.

Employment and crime are commonly assumed to be negatively correlated. Those employed are less likely to commit crimes, and conversely, those who have a criminal record are less likely to become employed. Criminological research has provided strong empirical and theoretical support for the link between employment and crime, but also suggests that a complex set of mechanisms may be at play. Additionally, studies show that employment can also increase the risk of criminal behaviour. In the introduction of this special issue, three causal relationships in the work-crime nexus will be discussed: employment causing crime, employment preventing crime, and crime blocking future employment.

A period of labor market absence decreases the chance to get a job. Previous research showed that labor market positions of both incarcerated and temporarily unemployed people are worse after compared to before the (forced) time out of the labor market. It remains uncertain which mechanisms cause the negative association between labor market absence and employment outcomes. In this paper we investigate whether incarceration affects the time to employment differently than regular unemployment. Using an unique quasi-experimental design we conduct event history analyses in order to estimate to what extent job opportunities differ for a group of ex-prisoners (N=1,790) and a group of unemployed future prisoners (N=266). The results show that ex-prisoners find a job more quickly than unemployed future prisoners. Possibly, training, aftercare and the prison experience (deterrence) have a positive effect in the period right after release.

In de Kroniek rechterlijke macht wordt ingegaan op actualiteiten rondom uniforme rechtstoepassing. Betoogd wordt onder meer dat de ontwikkeling van eventueel toekomstig rechterlijk beleid gebaat is bij een algemeen aanvaarde methode. Verder wordt in deze kroniek aandacht besteed aan de beoogde wijziging van de competentiegrens in kantonzaken, die onder meer gevolgen heeft voor de relatieve competentie in kantonzaken en voor de beschikbaarheid van het Roljournaal. Daarnaast komen lopende uitvoeringstrajecten ter versterking van de cassatierechtspraak aan de orde. Tot slot wordt ingegaan op de problematiek van het verschoningsrecht voor mediators in samenhang met de implementatie van de Mediationrichtlijn.