Political parties in the Netherlands have been calling for a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir for years. But what do we actually know about this movement, its supporters and how they relate to Dutch society? This article is one of the first attempts to paint a more complete picture. It shows that the movement and its supporters adhere strictly to the course of the (re) establishment of the caliphate that was mapped out by founder Taqiuddin al-Nabhani in the 1950s. However, the assumption that the movement would advocate or encourage the use of violence requires nuance. These insights are not ‘static’ or ‘comprehensive’ and should be seen as a contribution to the discussion of the nature of the movement. The question of how the course – ideas and activities – of Hizb ut-Tahrir relates to democratic society will be addressed in a subsequent article.

In this article the development of a restorative justice probation practice is discussed from the perspective of the restorative justice principle of the inclusive community and the contribution of probation volunteers to the reintegration of (ex-)offenders through specific restorative justice intervention strategies. It is shown that in penal policy of the past decades the penal welfare-model and the aim of reintegration of ex-offenders has been overshadowed by a more utilitarian, punitive and management logic of criminal justice. As a result, the reintegration and social inclusion of ex-offenders has become a rather neglected area and, in the current liberal-democratic state, offenders face social conditions in which it is very hard to turn their life around. In addition it is suggested that both in mainstream and in restorative justice interventions, achievement of the goal of reintegration is often problematic or absent. Moreover, this lack of opportunities for connection may undermine and reduce the effects of interventions, including those with a restorative justice approach. Probation services that use specific restorative justice intervention strategies guided by both professionals and probation volunteers might contribute to a more active, inclusive role of the community and society in the reintegration of ex-offenders.

Terrorism could be regarded as an extreme type of (violent) criminal behaviour. Against this background, there is much to gain if criminological attention would be extended to terrorism. In this overview, the authors describe how and to what extent criminological theories may provide a significant contribution to underlying causes of terrorism. Previous criminological contributions to the field of terrorism have primarily taken a theory-extended approach, including routine activity theory, rational choice theory and strain theory. However, so far such studies lacked empirical data. Further, to this day, not much is known about the empirical applicability of other criminological theories, including desistance theories, which warrant particular attention. In order for criminology literature to contribute effectively to our understanding of terrorism and to pursue better counter-terrorism policies, empirical evidence should first be obtained. In this way, terrorism researchers, in close collaboration with criminologists, can deepen our theoretical and empirical understanding of this relatively underexplored field.

The present article examines the financial life of 131 jihadi travellers (JTs), also known as foreign terrorist fighters, from the Netherlands. For the purpose of the research, access was acquired to all their banking transactions in the year preceding their departure: over 60,000 transactions in total. Their income from work or employment, various forms of social assistance, student grants, and other income or expenditure were examined. The data provided a good picture of their financial independence, i.e., the extent to which they were capable of making their own living or needed to claim assistance from the authorities. The analysis shows that it is highly exceptional for Dutch JTs to be financially independent. Only 5 percent have sufficient income from work or employment without making any claims on the government for financial assistance, and are free of mounting debts. The low score can for a large part be explained by the fact that almost half of the JTs are under 23 years of age and/or receive a student grant. Their financial picture largely resembles ordinary students. Older JTs (over 22 years of age, and not having received a student grant for at least one year) underperform, however. Only 9 percent are financially independent. Financial support could perhaps be used to monitor or steer recipients’ role in society.

In this contribution is explained what the researchers have learned from developing a course for professionals regarding recognizing signs of radicalization among youngsters. Giving this training has given us insight into the knowledge and expertise that professionals possess. The participants in our training were all enthusiastic and competent professionals. The will to support these young people and their families is great. But we have also encountered some bottlenecks: there is not sufficient time to maintain contacts with informal networks and next to that we have noticed that professionals are often insecure, meaning that they don’t know how to handle a case and/or who to contact for further advice or another form of help in dealing with these cases. As a consequence professionals might feel isolated and left behind within the institutions that they are working in. For the future we would like to see that this problem of what in The Netherlands is referred to as ‘professional loneliness’ is addressed.

The new Dutch Intelligence and Security Services Act 2017 extends the (special) powers of the intelligence and security services and introduces a new system of checks and balances. In this article several of the most impactful changes and underlying issues are discussed. They include the technology neutral approach, the new bulk surveillance powers, oversight (its role, tasks, independence and the use of outside experts), complaints and whistleblowers procedure, the lack of appeal procedures and the exchange of information with foreign agencies.

Studying terrorism and radicalization is quite problematic because of a lack of reliable sources. Finding out what motivates terrorists often boils down to educated guessing. The author describes the search for an academic definition of terrorism and summarizes the development of this discipline since the 1970s, thereby distinguishing research on three levels: macro, micro and meso. While before 9/11 few academics were involved in this research field, it ‘exploded’ thereafter. Important factor contributing to this expansion is the greater availability of government funds and relevant data for this type of research. However, the growth of this discipline isn’t just good news, researchers should be aware of a number of pitfalls identified as the proximity to government power, too much self-confidence (hybris) of researchers pretending to have designed a ‘unified theory’, the abundance of funds for this type of research, resulting in a lot of low-quality research, and finally the politicization of the subject, which could limit the academic freedom.

In the past few years, about three hundred Dutch Muslims travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the violent jihad. This article explores the phenomenon by looking into the individual characteristics and processes of these Dutch jihadis. It presents the findings of a study of the life stories of twelve of them, showing the diversity of the group. It also looks into types of jihadists and their roles in the jihadist scene using categories provided by Maher and Bjørgo. The article arrives at the somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion that there is no standard Dutch jihadist and that we need to study more individual cases and better understand what is going on within the jihadist scene in order to be able to stop people from following the path towards the violent jihad.

IS propaganda is assumed to contribute to radicalization of Western Muslims. How IS propaganda reaches the hearts and minds of Western Muslims and consequently fuels radicalization is nonetheless an understudied topic. Through content analysis of all fifteen issues of IS-glossy Dabiq this article demonstrates how IS propaganda works in Dabiq. First, IS attunes in Dabiq to factors that foster radicalization according to the literature. IS does so by its discussion in Dabiq of injustice done to Muslims worldwide, the image of the Western enemy, and its positive presentation of the individual and group identity of IS fighters. Second, in Dabiq IS paves the way for embracing violent means, such as terrorist attacks on Western civilians through a discourse of ‘denial’.

Over the last decades the number of people who have been detained on the suspicion of terrorism has significantly grown. This has resulted in an increased scholarly interest in the topic of prisons and terrorism. However, the main focus of academic research has been the period of incarceration. Especially the question whether terrorists should be isolated from other prisoners has received considerable scientific attention. What happens after their release still remains opaque. In this article some preliminary insights will be shared on particular aspects of the societal reintegration of former suspected terrorist detainees. It presents some of the obstacles, dilemmas and opportunities. These insights where obtained through semi-structured interviews with both professionals and former detainees with a jihadist background.

In order to understand why people can turn to violence to achieve political or societal changes, it is important to examine factors that can trigger a process of radicalization. In this article the authors outline such a model of trigger factors. In this model they specify trigger factors at the micro level (individual level), meso level (group level), and macro level (societal level). In addition, the authors argue that it is important to take into account personal characteristics, such as age, gender, and the type of motivation, behind a radicalization process. With respect to these types of motivation, the authors distinguish between sensation seekers, justice seekers, identity seekers, and meaning seekers. This model enables to discern triggers in the radicalization process of specific people in specific contexts.

This article describes a qualitative inquiry into Dutch people going to Syria for participating in Jihad. The inquiry compares theoretical findings with empirical facts, based on a content analysis and a document analysis, completed with ten depth-interviews. The results show that a combination of scientific findings on radicalisation and foreign fighters explains the jihad movement to Syria partly. The results also show that some factors, which have not recently be examined scientificly, are crucial for the character and extent of the movement towards Jihad.