In this article Emese von Bóné discusses the main findings of a Netherlands research (report) into the origin and functioning of the Belgian justice de paix and the French juge de proximité, the successor of the French justice de paix. The report also provides avenues how this type of adjudication could be implemented in the Dutch administration of justice.

Based on a retrospective analysis of six large scale and fatal fires in the Netherlands, an improvement in terms of meeting the needs of victims can be seen. A comparison of the legal settlement of these fires shows mayor differences in the fulfilling of different aspects of social justice that are identified in social psychology. Two victim needs commonly associated with retributive justice – financial compensation and a thorough, neutral investigation into the causes of the disaster – were fulfilled to a higher degree after the most recent fires than after those that occurred decades ago. The legal settlement after the New Year’s fire in Volendam (2001) appears – at least on paper – to have been more just from the victim’s point of view than the ones after the other incidents. Empirical research into the experienced social justice after the New Year’s fire can be valuable to assess the factors that can lead to a just settlement after disasters.

Gender as a construct has been introduced into criminology half a century ago and has contributed to an understanding of the relation between gender and violence. Therefore, when improving resilience of professionals encountering violent behaviour, gender might be an important construct to take into account. We know from the literature that men and women do not experience victimization and perpetration in the same way but at the same time there are some blind spots with regard to male victimization and female perpetration. Increasing resilience against violence is only possible when we do not automatically use gender stereotyping in understanding and reducing violence.

Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) is research in which legal questions are answered using empirical research methods. Traditionally, lawyers conduct normative, non-empirical research. Lately the legal discipline is increasingly interested in ELS. It is argued that we need more ELS. This raises the question to what extent Dutch researchers and practitioners conduct and apply ELS. In this article, we investigate the state of affairs of ELS in the Netherlands. We look at three different areas: legal research, legal education and legal practice. The data we use are legal PhD theses, legal course material, legislative proposals, and questionnaire data from legal practitioners. The methods are a systematic review, a quantitative content analysis, and a questionnaire research. Our study on legal research shows that researchers do apply empirical methods, but mainly the researchers with an education in social science. Our study on legal education shows that lawyers receive hardly any training on empirical research methods. Finally, our research on legal practice shows that practitioners and legislators struggle to apply empirical legal research. We plead for investments to enhance the production and usage of ELS, to prevent wrongful judicial decision-making, to generate effective legislation, and to create scientific innovation.