This article contains the results of a crime script analysis regarding the processes of human trafficking and human smuggling in Curaçao. The crime script analysis was conducted using data from five criminal investigations of human trafficking and seven criminal investigations of human smuggling. The results show that human trafficking in Curaçao consists of labor exploitation and sexual exploitation in bars, cafes and clubs. Young women are recruited from Colombia, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic to work as waitresses, trago girls and/or prostitutes. Once they arrive on the island, the women are dependent on the perpetrators and are subjected to exploitation In this research, two types of human smuggling have been witnessed. The first type consists of Venezuelan smugglers who transport fellow Venezuelan nationals to Curaçao by boat in exchange for payment. The second type of smugglers are Curaçao locals who rent out rooms to Venezuelans that reside on the island illegally.

What role do Dutch criminologists play in the – especially since the onset of the so-called migration crisis – heated national and international debates on the criminalization of migration and border mobility? This will be the central question in this publication. Based on an inventory of national and international peer-reviewed publications written by Dutch criminologists, the article will reflect upon Dutch criminologists’ public role. In addition, based on the observed ‘silences’ in the scholarly debates on the criminalization of migration and border mobility, three avenues for further criminological research will be identified.

The maxim ‘law in books and law in action’ relays an implicit dichotomy, and though the constitutive nature of law is nowadays commonly professed, the reflex remains to use law in books as an autonomous starting point. Law however, it is argued in this article, has a storyline that commences before its institutional formalisation. Law as ‘a continuous process of becoming’ encompasses both law in books and law in action, and law in action encompasses timelines both before and after the formal coming about of law. To fully understand law, it is necessary to understand the entire storyline of law. Qualitative studies in law and society are well equipped to offer valuable insights on the facets of law outside the books. The insights are not additional to doctrinal understanding, but part and parcel of it. To illustrate this, an ethnographic case study of local bylaws regulating an ethnically diverse public space of everyday life is expanded upon. The case study is used to demonstrate the insights qualitative data yields with regard to the dynamics in which law comes about, and how these dynamics continue for law in action after law has made the books. This particular case study moreover exemplifies how law is one of many truths in the context in which it operates, and how formalised law is reflective of the power constellations that have brought it forth.

Afgelopen voorjaar hielden twee hoogleraren een intreerede over het thema toezicht. Op 17 maart jl. gaf Judith van Erp aan de Universiteit Utrecht een oratie die de titel meekreeg: Toezicht in een open samenleving. Maatschappelijke controle op multinationale ondernemingen. Kort daarna, op 29 maart, hield Femke de Vries haar oratie aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, getiteld: Leidt transparantie tot meer vertrouwen in de toezichthouder? In dit artikel bespreken wij deze bijdragen in onderlinge samenhang, vanuit de verbindende vraag: is een open samenleving gebaat bij openheid over wat toezicht vermag?

In their article on the victim orientation in the combat against human trafficking – in particular labour exploitation – Cleiren, Van der Leun and Van Meeteren highlight the limitations of the protection of victims in practice. Based on a brief legal analysis and a secondary reading of the empirical literature, they conclude that the rights of victims remain subordinate to the main aims of the relevant legal domains: criminal law and immigration law. In addition, the practices-based analysis shows a mismatch between a victim-oriented approach and preferences and perceptions of many migrants involved as well as existing tensions between different legal domains.

In 2000 the Netherlands has lifted the ban on brothels. By legalizing sex work the Dutch government aimed to increase the opportunities to regulate this sector and to improve the social position of sex workers. This article examines to what extent the application of a particular fiscal regulation known as ‘opting-in’ to certain branches of the Dutch prostitution industry is legitimate from a socio legal perspective. It takes into account both the efficacy of the regulation with an eye on achieving the goals which were formulated in 2000 and the experiences of sex workers with this fiscal construction. Aubert’s theory regarding the influence of social factors on the observance of regulations is used to explain the discrepancy between the high degree of acceptance of the regulation amongst sex workers and the limited effectiveness with regard to the improvement of their labour rights.

Over the course of time the European Union has increased its powers considerably. Currently, almost all food safety regulations in the member states rest on European law. Despite this common legal base, several differences between member states still exist. This article compares the way Scottish and Dutch authorities deal with a particular item of European food law: the development of national guides to good practice for hygiene and for the application of HACCP principles by the food industry. The results of this investigation are consistent with the conclusion of Falkner et al. that the implementation of EU law in both the Netherlands and the UK depends on domestic issues. The dominant issue in Scotland (and the UK) is the FSA objective to bring consistent food controls and independency from industry which results in the development of governmental guidance. The prevailing issue in the Netherlands is making industry responsible for food safety which helps explain the extensive use of industry guides. This study shows that in order to understand what happens on the ground it is important to look beyond transposition or direct effect and also to investigate the implementation of regulations and to dig deeper than just their transposition.

The social history of jazz music in America since 1880 has been described as a movement out of the inauspicious background of night clubs and brothels in the urban underworld. In 1980 Ronald L. Morris has published a book, Wait until dark, fostering a contrary view (that should inspire criminology). Morris claimed that until 1940 the ‘mob’ had promoted jazz music as gangsters hired black musicians without concern for the law and the conventions of racial segregation. There is some evidence that even during the 1950s the jazz scene of New York City and Las Vegas had also been partly organized by the mafia.

Based on qualitative research within Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands, the authors describe and discuss (informal) labour relations among Chinese restaurant owners and their illegal Chinese workers. It is argued that a too one-sided emphasis on interpreting these labour relations in terms of ‘labour exploitation’ reduces employers to offenders and employees to victims. Such a judicial perspective hinders a clear view on the causes of underlying themes as illegal labour and illegal stay. The authors discuss how restaurant owners and employees operate in a ‘moral economy’ in which a demand for cheap products and flexible, motivated, cheap, and capable labour interacts with culturally shared expectations on justice and reciprocity and influences labour relations.

Since 2005 article 273 of the Dutch criminal code does not only qualify exploitation of prostitutes as a criminal act, but also exploitation taking place in other sectors. Seven years down the line not much is known about this type of human trafficking. Based on an analysis of files of the Dutch Social Security Investigation and Detection Service (ISZW-DO) this article describes in which sectors such exploitation takes place, the characteristics of both victims and (alleged) perpetrators and the modus operandi used. The article concludes and emphasizes that especially subtle means of coercion are used, but that these can transform into more serious types of coercion.

In de tweede Kaderstellende visie op toezicht uit 2005 is het uitgangspunt ‘minder last, meer effect’, zoals de titel van dat kabinetsstuk luidt. Toezichtslasten moeten worden teruggedrongen en de meerwaarde van toezicht, het effect, moet toenemen. Maar, wat zijn effecten van toezicht? Hoe kunnen toezichtseffecten worden vastgesteld? Waarom is het belangrijk aandacht te schenken aan effecten van toezicht? De Inspectieraad besteedt veel aandacht aan dit onderwerp, hoe kan het dat inspecties en autoriteiten op dat vlak maar langzaam in beweging komen? Gelukkig zijn er ook goede voorbeelden van effectmetingen, ook in de Nederlandse inspectiepraktijk. Dit artikel belicht een aantal van die ‘best practices’ en geeft enkele adviezen en handreikingen.

Sinds begin jaren negentig wordt een restrictief beleid gevoerd om illegaliteit en de uitwassen die hiermee gepaard zouden gaan te bestrijden. Maar is een restrictief illegalenbeleid hier wel een geschikt middel voor? Deze vraag heeft centraal gestaan in het onderzoek ‘Het leven gaat door’ waarin het leven in de illegaliteit aan de hand van interviews met 88 uitgeprocedeerde asielzoekers uit Utrecht in kaart is gebracht. Het blijkt dat een restrictief beleid illegaliteit niet bestrijdt en problemen niet oplost, maar dat het juist problemen voor illegaal verblijvenden én samenleving veroorzaakt. Het huidige restrictieve beleid lijkt dan ook averechts te werken.

Sinds begin jaren negentig wordt een restrictief beleid gevoerd om illegaliteit en de uitwassen die hiermee gepaard zouden gaan te bestrijden. Maar is een restrictief illegalenbeleid hier wel een geschikt middel voor? Deze vraag heeft centraal gestaan in het onderzoek ‘Het leven gaat door’ waarin het leven in de illegaliteit aan de hand van interviews met 88 uitgeprocedeerde asielzoekers uit Utrecht in kaart is gebracht. Het blijkt dat een restrictief beleid illegaliteit niet bestrijdt en problemen niet oplost, maar dat het juist problemen voor illegaal verblijvenden én samenleving veroorzaakt. Het huidige restrictieve beleid lijkt dan ook averechts te werken.

In this essay the author looks back at ten years of rule of law foreign assistance in Afghanistan. She first surveys the elements that make Afghanistan particularly challenging as a development. This is followed by a brief outline of foreign donor-assisted efforts at rule of law reform in the last decade. The features of law and legal systems in Afghanistan that are salient for would-be foreign reformers are analyzed. The concept of judicial independence serves as example of well-intentioned rule of law interventions that have not fared well in this complex environment. The author argues that better prepared international advisors with a better grasp of legal history and comparative law may have produced stronger outcomes. Ultimately, however, a pre-post-conflict setting constrains conventional rule of law programs in important ways and calls for more realism about what can be achieved, within what time frame and with what degree of sustainability.