Prejudiciële beslissing over de aanbestedingsrechtelijke kwalificatie van de Italiaanse voetbalbond. Een marktpartij meent dat de Italiaanse voetbalbond kwalificeert als een aanbestedende dienst in de zin van de Aanbestedingsrichtlijn en daarom opdrachten via een aanbesteding dient te vergeven. Het Hof van Justitie benoemt in zijn beslissing de relevante criteria om te oordelen of sprake is van een publiekrechtelijke instelling, te weten: de instelling (1) is opgericht met het specifieke doel te voorzien in andere behoeften van algemeen belang dan die van industriële en commerciële aard, (2) bezit rechtspersoonlijkheid en (3) vertoont overheidsafhankelijkheid. Het Hof van Justitie geeft de Italiaanse feitenrechter handvatten om te onderzoeken of voldaan is aan het derde vereiste, en meer specifiek of sprake is van overheidstoezicht op het beheer van de voetbalbond.
HvJ 3 februari 2021, gevoegde zaken C-155/19 en C-156/19, ECLI:EU:C:2021:88 (Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC)).

This article examines why literary fiction (based on extensive research and cooperation with inmates) allows us to understand the reality of being incarcerated sometimes better than non-fictional work or scientific research. Based on her long-term experiences as a creative writing coach in a Dutch prison the author explains why literature is such a great tool for empowerment and developing the talent of inmates, because it creates a ‘free space in prison’, where inmates are (aspired) writers instead of prisoners. She describes in detail how equivalent working relations between her as an ‘outsider’ and inmates have allowed her to create the novel Een van ons (One of us), an intimate story told from the perspective of a prisoner sentenced to life and a writing coach, and how she avoided the clichés of the questions of guilt and stigmatization. Otten explores the ‘unique power’ of fiction as a tool for opening up the closed world of incarceration.

One can only welcome the re-edition of Herman Franke’s impressive Ph.D. thesis on the history of the prison system in the Netherlands. Although a short English-language version of this book has been published, one still has to look out for a comparative assessment between his analysis and histories on the prison system in other Western countries. This contribution to the special issue of Justitiële verkenningen (Judicial explorations) does not make up an attempt to fabricate such an assessment. It only relates to the ways Franke has dealt with, on the one hand, international authors such as Cesare Beccaria, Edouard Ducpétiaux and Cesare Lombroso, who have played an important role in the development of the Western prison system. And it looks into Franke’s dealing with, on the other hand, international authors such as Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer, and Michel Foucault, whose interpretations of its development to a large extent still dominate the academic debate with regard to the history of the prison system. The conclusion is that Franke’s analysis of the first category of authors really is rather superficial and his analysis of the second category is a much more balanced one.

In the second half of the last century, the position of detainees in the Netherlands improved considerably. As far as is possible in the case of persons deprived of their freedom, there has been a certain emancipation of detainees. A well-functioning right of complaint and appeal has been created, for example, that offers detainees the possibility to have decisions of the government, in particular those of the director of the institution and the selection official, that are unfavourable to them, reviewed by an independent judicial authority. Their living conditions have also improved during this period. However, in recent years there has also been a tendency for the government to make ever greater demands on the behaviour of detainees, in return for fewer opportunities for activities and freedoms aimed at resocialisation. Since last year, the corona pandemic and the way in which it is dealt with in prisons have put further pressure on the already vulnerable position of detainees. Since March 2020, prisoners have had their opportunities for phasing in and resocialising further reduced by the virtual prohibition of leave. Furthermore, the visiting possibilities and the activity programmes within the penitentiary institutions have been minimal for over a year.

In 1990 Herman Franke’s masterly dissertation Twee eeuwen gevangen. Misdaad en straf in Nederland was published. An abbreviated version appeared in English in 1995: The emancipation of prisoners: A socio-historical analysis of the Dutch prison experience, awarded best foreign study by the American Society of Criminology. Franke analyzes the developments in the Dutch prison system from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. Despite the size of almost a thousand pages, the book reads like a novel. Even before Herman Franke’s untimely death in 2010 there were plans for a re-publication of the book in a hardcover. That re-edition was finally made available by Boom criminologie in 2020. In this special issue of Justitiële verkenningen, eight prison experts from science and practice reflect on the contemporary prison system from the perspective of the book. It offers tools to rise above the delusions of the day in public and scientific discussions about punishment and to relate new developments to the theoretical concepts introduced by Franke.

In his famous dissertation Twee eeuwen gevangen (Two centuries of imprisonment), Franke explains the history of imprisonment in the Netherlands as a development from external to internal coercion, based on the civilization theory of Norbert Elias. Central question of this contribution is in how far the pursuit of responsibilization of prisoners as described by modern penologists can be conceived as a continuation of this process and what the consequences of this pursuit are. It is concluded that the forces behind these two processes differ, but that both rehabilitation strategies are modelled on a new citizenship ideal. In so far the introduction of the responsibilization strategy illustrates Franke’s main thesis, namely that developments within the penitentiaries can only be understood in their social and historical context. It is argued that responsibilization can lead to the erosion of the legal position of prisoners, while emancipation was precisely described by Franke as an achievement of the Dutch prison system.

Starting point in this article is the classical work of Herman Franke on the history of the Dutch prison system. Franke showed how policymakers and other people who influence prison policy and practice tried to reduce criminal behavior in the past two centuries. These attempts had various backgrounds, among which religious, sociological and biological, and varied greatly in scientifical substantiation. Every new prison policy elicited high hopes, but in practice criminal behavior was rarely pushed in the desired direction. The means of the prison system, among which staff, buildings and regime regulations, showed to be much later realized than the formulated goals established by law. Another problem that came up more than once in history was that the urge and compulsion mechanism of a new prison policy lacked support base and (agogical) skills among prison staff. Recommendations are formulated for the (near) future in favor of more successfull prison policy implementations.

This article reflects on the brilliant 1990-book of criminologist Herman Franke on long-term developments in the Dutch prison system from 1800 onward. A pertinent question is whether it is possible and adequate to use the discourse of ‘emancipation’ to catch the historical processes in total institutions. A comparison is made with parallel transformations in the institutional sector of mental health, a social field in which there has been a radical movement claiming better legal protection and more humane living conditions. Surely an improvement has occurred in the actual situation of prisoners and mental patients, but one has to be reluctant (or even sceptical) to frame this in terms of ‘emancipation’.

It has been proposed that when people perceive their treatment by criminal justice actors as more procedurally just, they will be more likely to comply with the law. Existing research mainly focused on the police or the judge. This longitudinal study examined how prisoners experienced their treatment by five different criminal justice actors using data from the Prison Project. The prisoners were most positive about the procedurally fair treatment by their lawyer and least positive about the treatment by the police. Additionally, the perceived treatment by the police was associated with the treatment by other actors at subsequent moments.

In 1938, Nico (or Niko) Gunzburg founded the Institute of Criminology at Ghent University.
Because he was a professor of Jewish origin, Flemish-minded, a political liberal and a freemason, he became the victim, in 1940 and in 1941, of looting by the ‘Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete’. Personal books, documents, art and archives concerning his lodge ‘Marnix van Sint Aldegonde’ were stolen from his house and transported to nazi-Germany. After the Second World War, almost the entire collection was found in the Moscow-Archive and subject to restitution.

Spiritual caregivers in the Netherlands are available in the military and in penitentiary institutions, in health care institutions and, recently, in the police. Within the military and the justice system, the spiritual care is traditionally characterised by a clear division of responsibilities between church and state. Due to domain specific developments in health care institutions and within the police, positions and responsibilities are less clear-cut. Developments such as the increased number of denominations that provide spiritual care tends to regard spiritual caregivers as ‘ordinary employees’. This article analyses the position of spiritual caregivers in the various domains and discusses current developments. It asserts that the church-state arrangement in the classic spiritual care areas requires respect and that the gist thereof should be taken into account in legal arrangements in the other domains.

In dit artikel wordt verslag gedaan van het eerste Nederlandse onderzoek naar de ervaring van justitiabelen die strafrechtelijk zijn vervolgd zijn voor ‘witteboordencriminaliteit’. Dertig ‘witteboordendaders’ zijn geïnterviewd over de beleving en gevolgen van strafrechtspleging tijdens verschillende fasen (opsporing en vervolging, terechtzitting, strafexecutie en na strafexecutie of vrijspraak) en op verschillende levensdomeinen (mentaal, gezin en familie, sociale relaties en zakelijk). Daarnaast is hun gevraagd te reflecteren op het strafproces zelf.

This article analyzes the opinion of twenty-four Surinamese ex-convicted young men on restorative justice. The results were obtained through four focus group sessions and a concise survey form. The factors (a) type of offense, (b) seriousness of offense and (c) prevention of recurrence were discussed. The opinions are divided, but the majority is of the opinion that restorative justice can mainly work for serious and violent crimes. Fear of revenge appears to be a barrier to participation. Employment has been indicated as the key to real recovery of the offender and prevention of recidivism (and thus satisfaction for the victim). The results provide insight into the susceptibility to restorative justice among this specific group in Suriname.

Door de coronacrisis heeft het gebruik van technologie in de rechtszaal een enorme vlucht genomen. In deze bijdrage wordt gereflecteerd op de vraag of – en zo ja, in hoeverre – videorechtspraak bepaalde fundamentele, rechtstatelijke beginselen van ons strafproces raakt. Hiertoe worden de (potentiële) effecten van remote justice besproken in het licht van het brede (niet strikt juridische) procedural justice perspectief waarbij de nadruk wordt gelegd op de deelaspecten participatie en zorgvuldigheid van besluitvorming.