Voor veel mensen met een functiebeperking geldt dat zij op wettelijk geregelde voorzieningen moeten vertrouwen voor hun basale levensbehoeften. De aannames van de wetgever betreffende welke noden van deze groep tot de verantwoordelijkheid van de maatschappij behoren, bepalen dus de mate waarin zij in deze behoeften kunnen voorzien en hoe zij – en hun omgeving – hun leven kunnen inrichten. In dit artikel wordt onderbouwd waarom de huidige aannames van de wetgever een grote groep mensen met een functiebeperking in de steek laten. In de participatiemaatschappij staan deelname aan de reguliere arbeidsmarkt en vertrouwen op het eigen netwerk namelijk centraal. Dientengevolge schiet de huidige sociale zekerheid voor mensen die niet of niet gedeeltelijk kunnen werken en geen daadkrachtig netwerk te hebben, veelal tekort. Een begin van de oplossing van dit probleem, zo wordt voorgesteld, is het opnieuw waarderen van bijdragen buiten de reguliere arbeidsmarkt en het uitbreiden en bestendigen van de voorzieningen voor mensen met een functiebeperking.

The 20th anniversary of this journal is a good reason to glance back at developments with restorative justice for children and young people. Can we say that restorative youth justice has become mature? Some core events and articles about developments in Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere are discussed, paying attention to young suspects as well as victims. Subsequently, the embedding of restorative justice in youth laws is discussed. Finally, the article focuses on the question what should be done to improve the implementation into an effective, child friendly and ‘rights based’ youth sanction model.

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.

Investigative reporters show an increasing interest in criminal phenomena. Dutch journalists may be allowed access to ongoing police investigations on the condition that they comply with data protection legislation. Working in international cooperative projects, using sophisticated research tools and hot sources, journalists by themselves also manage to uncover hidden crimes that may prompt indictments. The article explores possibilities of future collaboration between criminal investigators and reporters, while acknowledging each other’s professional roles and responsibilities.

With the digitization of society, perpetrators gained new tools to commit crimes. Online fraud, also referred to as e-fraud, is one of the most common types of cybercrime. The present study focusses on two types of e-fraud: phishing and online consumer fraud. Although e-fraud always contains a digital component, the human is the weakest link in such crimes. Perpetrators deceive their victims to acquire sensitive data or to conclude a fraudulent sale, which makes victims unwillingly participate in the offence. However, not every person adheres to such fraudulent schemes. This raises the question what makes some people comply with these schemes and thus become a victim of cybercrime, while others do not. In this study, the differences between personality traits of e-fraud victims and the Dutch population were investigated. Personality traits influence the way people process information and react to situations, which also applies when people are confronted with e-fraud. Data were collected through an online survey, in which 224 e-fraud victims participated. The outcomes of the survey were compared with norm groups representative for the Dutch population. E-fraud victims, compared to the Dutch population, scored higher on extraversion, altruism and conscientiousness, and lower on neuroticism. Based on the findings, recommendations have been made for the development of targeted preventive measures against e-fraud.

In the context of criminal investigations police and prosecution can appeal to the public for information to further their case. This decision cannot be taken lightly and requires a balancing exercise between the rights of the suspect (and other people involved), specifically the right to privacy, the interest of criminal investigations, such as the identification of the suspect or witnesses, and public pressure to fight crime.
In the current digital society, the prosecutor can choose between a wide range of (new) media and modes of communication to ask for information. Next to wanted notices on paper posters and broadcasts on television, appeals for information are published on websites, social media platforms, apps and digital screens. Citizens can modify and share these appeals and they can comment on them. This necessitates careful consideration by the prosecutor on whether and how to appeal for information. After all, these appeals could lead to DIY-policing or online vigilantism (digilantism), leading to infringements on the right to privacy and even possibly to misidentification of suspects.
This article contributes to the continuing debate. We describe the legal framework the prosecution has to take into account in such cases. The importance of a considered decision is illustrated by three cases in which judicial authorities appealed to the public for help in the criminal investigations, resulting in massive (media) attention and consequently affecting the eventual criminal case against the defendants. In two of these cases the prosecutorial decision to involve the public’s help resulted in a violation of the defendants’ rights to privacy and consequently had to be remedied by the court. Both cases led to social, legal and political debate about the balance between privacy and crime control.

This article describes the context of this thematic issue on restorative practices in schools. In 2016, KU Leuven performed an explorative research named “Field Glasses”. The research dealt with similarities and differences between restorative justice in the penal context on the one hand, and the domains of community building, adult education and schools on the other hand (Deboeck e.a., 2017). Literature has been studied and actors of both practice and policy-making have been interviewed. This article describes some of the main findings with regard to restorative practices and schools.

In the Netherlands there is a tendency to make use of the methodology of conferencing circles in case of domestic violence and abuse. The 2009 evaluation showed positive results and since then the approach has been improved, giving way to an increase of requests coming from justice (related) authorities. The underlying approach and caveats are discussed, portraying Eigen Kracht-conferences as an adequate means to unravel the complex phenemenon of domestic violence and abuse, calling upon significant others.

In de afgelopen jaren en maanden is over 403-aansprakelijkheid veel discussie geweest. Deze bijdrage beoogt aan de hand van min of meer recente rechtspraak een overzicht te geven van de stand van zaken anno 2016 ten aanzien van een aanzienlijk aantal deelonderwerpen inzake 403-aansprakelijkheid. Enkele deelonderwerpen zijn inmiddels dankzij rechtspraak duidelijk geworden, maar zeker niet alle. Ten aanzien van de nog steeds onduidelijke deelonderwerpen is inmiddels ingrijpen van de wetgever geboden.

This article reflects on the various aspects of paedophile relationships. It is for a large part based on the author’s 30 years of clinical experience with the treatment of paedosexual men. The characteristics of paedophile relatonships are examined and how they usually develop. What does the paedophile seeks in a relationship with a child and vice versa? The prohibition of paedophilia and its consequences for the paedophile are also discussed. Paedosexuality is banned because of the supposed damage for the child involved. But what causes this damage? And what is the possible damage caused by the prohibition? Finally the author shows the interacting of elements like desire and love as well as manipulation and secrets. The friendship with an older man can be very valuable for a child, which is reflected in many books and movies on this topic. In this sense a paedophile relatonship can be appropriate. But this applies only if the adult has enough self control to refrain from giving in to sexual desires, since a paedosexual relationship can never be appropriate.

At the end of 2000, a pilot project began in Flanders (Belgium) to offer family group conferencing for juvenile offenders. Since June 2006, this restorative practice – together with victim-offender mediation – has been inserted in the new Youth Justice Act, making conferencing available in all judicial districts in Flanders. Five years later, however, the mediation-services had to conclude that the number of referrals for conferencing remains rather limited. This observation inspired the mediation services to take actions to bring conferencing more to the attention. This article reports on the findings of a study that was part of this process. Based on (1) an analysis of all conferencing-files that were referred between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 31, (2) focus groups with youth court social workers and criminologists working at the level of the public prosecutor and (3) surveys conducted with youth judges, the study aimed to identify and discuss barriers and obstacles within the current referral practice of conferencing in Flanders.

The Eigen Kracht Centrale is striving for a society based on participation and mutual self reliance of citizens, where citizens remain in charge of their own life, especially when dealing with organizations and government bodies. It is important, in the Eigen Kracht Centrale vision, that everyone is part of society and everyone can participate, everyone has a say and remains in charge of his or her own life, everyone gets support from their own social network: family, friends, neighbors, etc.
Especially when problems arise that might lead to involvement of various (social care) institutions.
To implement this vision in daily life, the Eigen Kracht Centrale has introduced the Family Group-conference as a decision making model. This model appears to be effective for citizens to make their own plans. When given responsibility for the situation and the solution, citizens, in every situation thinkable, create, according to themselves and professionals as well, save and creative plans that fit.
In this article the FG-c for a group, district or neighbourhood is discussed and is illustrated by real life examples. Even when people don’t know each other, they can make a plan to solve conflicts in their street or neighbourhood: they all have a strong interest in living in safe, comfortable surroundings. Although the experience with this variant of FGC is limited in The Netherlands: what are they, what lessons can be learned?

Deze kroniek geeft een overzicht van de belangrijkste informele zienswijzen en besluiten van de Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit (NMa) en de Nederlandse rechtspraak met betrekking tot concentratiecontrole. Ook zullen nieuwe wetgeving en beleid op dit gebied aan bod komen. Waar nodig hebben schrijvers kanttekeningen geplaatst bij de rechtspraak en besluiten.

Biographies of ‘criminals’ are an immensely popular genre. As ‘true crime’ stories they are generally found on the shelves of fiction literature. In this article the authors examine their cultural criminological significance. First, they examine what makes a ‘good’ biography, analyse how biographical material is used in the work of people like Robert Park and his Chicago School, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu and indeed historians. Then the authors list different traditions of criminal biographies. They conclude by arguing that ‘good biographies’, i.e. biographies that are both sufficiently emic and offer enough context information, have a lot to offer, because they show ‘the other side’ of criminology, provide information that cannot be obtained through strictly scientific methods and counter the reductionist images prevailing in the discipline.