Organizing dog fights is prohibited in the Netherlands. In such fights, two dogs have to fight each other, sometimes to the death. The animal suffering behind this is enormous. Little is known in the Netherlands about the phenomenon of dog fighting, both from a scientific point of view and through criminal cases. In this contribution, we outline the world behind dog fights by describing how dog fights work, who are part of the entourage and within which criminal infrastructure the dog fights take place. Finally, the problem is discussed and the current approach by the appropriate authorities is discussed and which gaps can be discovered.

Increasing digitization and datafication lead to an increasingly important role of data in our society and to changes in the way institutions work and decisions are made. Although it can lead to changes in the type of crime (e.g. cybercrime), datafication also facilitates shifts from visible and registered crime to crime that has not (yet) been measured and registered, like manifestations of organized crime. Analyzing so-called big data can help to recognize new forms of crime, predict risk factors, and decrease the dark number of these forms of crime.
In this study, we illustrate which indicators determine the stage of an industrial area regarding the occurrence of organized crime. Our supervised machine learning analysis shows that a number of indicators actually have predictive value for the degree of organized crime. These indicators could be used in the future to distinguish which industrial areas run an increased risk of organized and subversive crime.

Theater performance must make hard sides of police work open to discussion

Restorative justice has developed into a recognized sanction or intervention in several countries. Literature shows that restorative justice is experienced as a procedural just approach by participants. Furthermore, a strong rejection of the behavior of the violators would reinforce reintegrative shaming in the process. Finally, stopping crime (desistance) could be achieved if the restorative justice approach would include reconstructing the self-image of the participants. This systematic literature review examines to what extent restorative justice contributes to compliant behavior by individuals and corporations. Although direct effects of restorative justice on compliance and recidivism fail to appear, procedural justice and reintegrative shame are positively affected. The results offer practical implementations and challenges for further research.

Intelligence-led policing (ILP) has been adopted by police organisations worldwide, yet organisational implementation appears to be difficult. Results of this study uncover organisational factors that affect ILP and give insight on how these facilitate or hinder ILP. The organisational factors can be categorised into technological, structural, cultural and people related factors. This research was conducted by means of a literature review and two case studies on the investigation of organised drug-related crime and on football and safety in two different units of the Dutch police. The results of this study can be considered as relevant input regarding future implementation of intelligence-led operations in the whole criminal justice chain.

The matter for this research is the request from the municipality of Eindhoven to map youth nuisance in the city of Eindhoven and to find explanations for differences between neighborhoods in order to provide policy makers with guidance. Quantitative and qualitative methods tested the social disorganization theory. Factors that may explain youth nuisance are a high degree of ethnic heterogeneity, low neighborhood participation and a high level of physical deterioration. In addition, youngsters who have unstructured leisure time prefer a place to hang out where there is no social control. Policy makers can use these insights to design their neighborhoods.

A vast amount of research focuses on what should be said and done in suspect interviews and crisis negotiations to make the suspect cooperate. This article discusses the most important findings of five empirical studies that focus on the situation in which something wrong is said, which may undermine cooperation. The findings show that communication errors have both positive and negative effects on the suspect and law enforcement officer. Yet, it is the verbal response of the law enforcement officer that determines its overall direction. It is important to acquire knowledge on this topic, as there is a likely chance of making communication errors in these high-stake interactions and with these insights you can prepare yourself for when this situation occurs.

This article addresses the role of parents and girlfriends in the process of giving up crime. It presents findings from a longitudinal study of 81 young recidivists examined over 15 years. It concludes that parents played a pivotal role in this process, since the young men began to realize what misery they had caused them. However, these young men did not change their path in life because of their parents. We conclude even stronger than with the parents that it does not seem likely that a young recidivist would desist because of his girlfriend. Nevertheless, it would seem that both parents and a secure, lasting relationship could indeed have a positive influence in this process, particularly in the motivation to stick to a new path towards a more pro-social lifestyle once it has been set out on.

Police and prosecution can appeal to the public for information to further their case. This requires a balancing exercise between the rights of the suspect (and other people involved), specifically the right to privacy and the interest of criminal investigations. Appeals for information and wanted notices require a medium as well. Also, in order for the appeal to be effective, other (news)media need to publish the appeal as well: it needs to be newsworthy and attractive for the public intended. Based on deskresearch, this article describes how an ever-changing media landscape and different media revolutions affect the appeals for information.

This article concerns an experiment involving three learning communities of professionals cooperating across institutional boundaries to address domestic violence cases in multiple complementary ways. Providers of social services interacted with law enforcement in a juridical context to achieve an integrated approach. This alliance indicates the potential for values-based Good Work based on safety, professional care, and compassionate treatment. Playing with time and capacity can be a strategy, and each professional can benefit from multiple viewpoints for recognising and anticipating patterns of domestic violence before it (re)occurs.
A lack of funding has suspended embedding this Good Work, slowing progress toward achieving long-term goals and making this interdisciplinary approach to assuring sustainable safety unavailable to prevent repeated outbreaks of domestic violence.

In the media one notices items on mistreatment of animals on a regular basis. These can cause intense agitation in the society. Think of the many horses that have been abused throughout the country in 2012. This case remains unsolved to this day. The question is: who does this, who are the animal abusers, what are their characteristics and backgrounds? After a long search in several registration systems of many institutions the characteristics and backgrounds of 97 animal abusers have been found. The data of the institutions have also been used to create an image of the nature and extent of animal abuse. Subsequently there have been interviews with several experts from different organisations to record their knowledge and experience and to indicate the results. The characteristics and backgrounds of the animal abusers are diverse. Their ages range from 7 to 85 years. The offenders are an average of 34 years old at the time of committing the animal abuse. Animal abusers are not notorious criminals. Half is reported to be the first offender according to police data. The other half commits all forms of crime. This includes the share of capital offenses (34%) and violent crimes (23%). Dogs are most often abused. The motives are diverse. Disappearing anger and frustration seems to be an important reason to abuse animals. Only nine people found that there was domestic violence in addition to animal abuse. An initial classification of types of animal traffickers in, amongst others, group planners, loners and sadists, has to be empirically substantiated.

The nature and extent and lessons for the detection of long-term missing persons.

The UK government has embarked on an ambitious programme to reform the English and Welsh probation sector. Key to these reforms has been ‘marketisation’ involving Payment by Results. More recently the devolution of justice has become a key theme. This paper describes key reforms that have taken place since 2010 and sets out evidence for their effectiveness. Currently, the available evidence is limited, but more evidence is available from other sectors where similar models have also been used. This evidence base is discussed with particular reference to the potential for the reforms to promote innovation.

The continuous integration of the Internet in societal daily life leads to an array of new communication methods, including the Darkweb. This hidden form of the Internet (which enables much more anonymity due to several encryption techniques) seems to be used for a lot of criminal enterprise. Also in the planning phase of crimes, the Darkweb seems to play an important role. Nevertheless, research on this phenomenon is quite scarce. In the present study, a sample of 198 threads (i.e. discussion topics) was analyzed via a quantitative content analysis, after which an exploratory study was conducted to highlight patterns and structures of communications on the Darkweb. The results show that different types of Darkweb users (e.g. sellers, rookie users, etc.) vary clearly in their communication activities and the crimes that they communicate about (e.g. malware, drugs).

Both the Court of Justice and the regional Court of The Hague ruled the retention of telecommunications data directive and the Dutch Wet bewaarplicht telecommunicatiegegevens in violation of the right to respect for privacy. The police and the Dutch Prosecutors Office have attempted to clarify the importance of the retention for criminal investigation. However, without an efficiency and effectiveness assessment of the method to request and analyse telecommunication data, it is not possible to substantiate the significance of data retention. To ‘save’ the retention of telecommunication data in its current form, but also to assess the importance of the existing and new investigative methods, a thorough analysis is necessary.

Dutch family liaison officers inform and support trauma victims or their relatives. Recent studies suggest that professionals working with trauma victims may develop work-related stress. However, other studies have shown that professionals can also develop personal growth from their experiences with traumatized persons. This study was the first to investigate to what extent Dutch family liaison officers experience work-related stress or personal growth. Results suggest that the majority of the respondents experience no or very low levels of work-related stress. Levels of personal growth appear to be rather low as well, but seem to be more broadly dispersed. These findings suggest that Dutch family liaison officers are able to cope with the potentially negative effects of their work and even experience positive outcomes from working with traumatized persons. In spite of this, many participants provided suggestions for further improvement of their work practices.

This article presents how criminal court handle with stories alternative to the accusative story. By analysing verdicts it is showed that reasonable doubt is not merely caused by the simple possibility of an alternative scenario. Under condition of sufficient evidence for conviction criminal courts will reject alternative stories which are without likely indications as well as unusual stories presented in an tardy stadium of law. Therefor it is important for participants in law to focus on the (lack of) support and the (im)plausiblity of alternative stories, instead of (requesting) infinite search for discriminative evidence in merely suggested stories.

‘Pride’ and ‘honour’ are two concepts that are closely related and in the context of South Africa, are often based on a history of violent battles between various groups in society. VU University Amsterdam has lifelong relations with the historically Afrikaner universities in South Africa. During the Apartheid years the Afrikaner universities scientifically legitimized many of the apartheid policies and practices. In that sense VU University Amsterdam, through its relations to South African counterparts, may be considered complicit with the policies and practices of the Apartheid regime. Consequently, there seems little reason for pride and honour, but rather shame about having sided with academic partners who have at least passively supported the regime? Starting with an explicit acknowledgement of this complicity, the oeuvre of former Archbishop Desmond Tutu may open a path of hope for VUA to contribute to mending past injustices and by, together with its South African academic partners, working towards equality and building new relations in the present South African society.

For several years the Netherlands has been facing group violence around football matches and other recreational events. Offenders involved may be characterized as notorious troublemakers, incidental offenders or ‘new hooligans’. Notorious troublemakers and new hooligans actively look for risky situations. Their behavior is related to both contextual factors and individual predispositions. In contrast incidental offenders get involved in public disorder only due to a combination of circumstances. (Individual) disruptive behavior during public disorder therefore has different underlying causes. A combination of a person-centered approach, early identification of potential notorious troublemakers and situational prevention measures are important pillars for future policy and police practice.