In international organized drug crime, the Netherlands is an important transit country (especially for cocaine and, to a lesser extent, heroin and other drugs) and an important production country (of cannabis and synthetic drugs). Drug production and trafficking have serious consequences for society. For example, in addition to possible health damage due to drug use, criminal money flows become intertwined with the regular economy. There is also an increase in new perpetrators, facilitators and bystanders who become involved in illegal activities, murders, and other violence due to conflict between criminal groups and dumping waste from drug production. Organized drug crime increasingly has a far-reaching and subversive impact on the Netherlands and its rule of law. The murders of journalist Peter R. de Vries and lawyer Derk Wiersum are painful recent examples. Despite these severe consequences, the approach to organized drug crime has long been what we can retrospectively call ‘modest’, ‘naïve’, ‘incidental’, and ‘fragmented’.

The complexity of organized crime activities as compared to most common crimes makes that the offender types and involvement mechanisms differ from what has been described in traditional life-course studies. This article addresses two different involvement mechanisms for organized crime: family ties and work ties. Those who become involved through family or close friends are more likely to have an early start in crime, to intentionally search for opportunities for crime, and to situate themselves in a context where these opportunities are common. Those who become involved through work ties are more likely to have a late start in crime and to have no preconceived plan to involve in crime, but they are faced with an opportunity. Both types of offenders are interesting as crime groups benefit from a certain degree of heterogeneity, providing access to different contacts, knowledge, and skills.

In this contribution, a comparison is drawn between the origins of the cellular system in the 19th century and the system of closed youth care in the 21st century. The comparison then focuses on the alarming signals from closed youth care practice and how these are dealt with. The author argues that shortages in the provision of regular youth care have led to situations in which young people are unnecessarily placed in closed youth care institutions. By focusing on eliminating this deficit closed youth care can be gradually phased out and reduced to a minimum.

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, criminologist Herman Franke published a seminal book on 200 years detention in the Netherlands. For the occasion of the reissue of this book in 2020, the question is posed to what extent Franke’s vision of a gradual ‘emancipation’ of prisoners, in the realm of a societal ‘civilization process’, as it is put forward by Norbert Elias, still holds today. The author confronts the civilization perspective with the three main competing paradigms in penology, derived from the work of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber and Michel Foucault. After describing some recent developments in penal practices, he concludes that despite the fact that sanctioning is increasingly taking place within society, which can well be analyzed from an eliasian perspective, there is little reason to still adhere to the progress optimism, implicit in Franke’s book, and that today we rather witness an emancipation of the ‘angry citizen’, in which vulnerable groups in society, such as prisoners, are despised rather than ‘emancipated’.

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.

The success of investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) in the US hasn’t gone unnoticed in Europe. After US police announced worldwide that the Golden State Killer had been identified with the application of IGG, the Swedish police and judiciary applied the same method to solve a double murder that had remained unsolved for sixteen years. How did this method come about? A young woman unfamiliar with her real name, age, parents, and origins came up with the idea that private genealogical DNA databases that allow customers to trace their distant relatives could also be used to discover her identity. Since then, in the US many cold cases have been solved with the help of these databases and also the identity of many unidentified human remains has been traced. Questions concerning this new method of investigation arise, to which the beginning of an answer is given here. What does the method entail? Is it allowed to use this method in the Netherlands as well?

This article seeks to provide an introduction to art theft today. It is divided into sections that look at the context in which art is stolen, definitions of key terms, an explanation as to why the field is understudied and under-reported, and a brief history of the phenomenon. It also contains sidelines on actual developments like the theft of a Van Gogh painting from the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands as well as on the drop of art theft since the start of the Corona pandemic.

This article provides a short overview of art crime policing and gives some insights as to why art crime policing is an especially arduous task while specifically providing examples from the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK). The article focuses first on the detection of art crime, exploring why many crimes do not enter the criminal justice system. Here, the fact that art crimes are often not detected at all or, if they are, not reported to the police is discussed in some depth in particular with a view to art theft and forgeries. The article then addresses the investigation and prosecution of art crime cases in the EU and how they are facilitated and inhibited in various member states. Finally, the challenges and possible improvements at the European level are discussed and future directions of the fight against art crime are debated.

How can technological tools contribute to supervising and reintegrating offenders in society? Globally, technological tools for supervision are broken down into so-called first generation (GPS tracking) and second generation (smartphone and sensor technology). An overview is given of what is globally known about the effectiveness and assumed mechanisms of action of first-generation technical tools. Then it is explored what added value second-generation technical aids can have and to which working mechanisms they could connect. Smartphone and sensor technology have the potential to contribute to the rehabilitation functions of the supervision, inter alia because they offer possibilities for more personalized supervision and for the combination of supervision and treatment. Although initiatives have been started in this regard and research is ongoing, hardly anything is known yet about the effectiveness of these new technological applications. The reliability and safety of IT, as well as ethical and legal aspects also require attention.

The decision to revoke or recall a conditional sanction is barely researched in criminal justice research, despite the interests involved for the offender as well as society. This article reflects on some results from a comparative research project on breach decision-making (COST Action on Offender Supervision in Europe). Using Hawkins’ concept of serial decision-making, the interdependence of early stage and final stage decision makers is highlighted. The significant power exercised by early stage actors raises the issue of the need to ensure credibility of community sanctions and appropriate due process protections, without reducing their discretion so much that they cannot perform their role of supporting the offender to complete the supervisory order successfully.

This article investigates which online undercover investigative methods are applied in practice and how they fit in the Dutch legal framework. In particular, the three special investigative powers of a pseudo purchase, systematic information gathering and infiltration are examined. Investigative powers cannot be applied unilaterally (across state borders). When law enforcement officials cannot reasonably determine the location of the suspect, the online unilateral application of undercover investigative powers is allowed. However, there is still a risk that diplomatic tensions arise with the involved state. States should agree in treaties under which circumstances cross-border online undercover operations are allowed.

In 2018 the Dutch parliament accepted new cybercrime legislation (the Cybercrime III Act) that creates several new online criminal offences and gives law enforcement agencies new investigative powers on the Internet. This article describes the background of Dutch cybercrime legislation and the contents of the Cybercrime III Act. The newly introduced cybercrimes are discussed as well as the new investigative competences. Particularly the legitimacy and the necessity of the investigative power of the police to hack computer systems of suspects may significantly interfere with the right to privacy.

Recently the Dutch Government has responded to an advise from the advisory body Raad van State concerning the relationship between the administrative and the penal system of sanctions.
Nowadays administrative sanctions are imposed in the Netherlands for serious offenses, whereas the original intention was to only use these procedures for minor felonies. It is unclear why some offenses are subject to a judicial judgment, while others are dealt with in administrative proceedings. Moreover, it appears that the administrative fines are often significantly higher than fines imposed by a judge. The government feels that harmonisation between the maximum of the administrative and penal fine should be realized. With regard to the choice between administrative and penal law, the government hasn’t found a criterion for deciding which offenses should be subject to a judicial judgment and which can be dealt with in administrative proceedings. The authors argue that the government could have offered more clarity by using the criterion of ‘serious criminal conduct’ as defined in criminal law. Criminal law has to be chosen when there is serious criminal conduct. In other cases it is possible to choose the administrative procedure.

The Dutch Judiciary has only a very limited role in the imposition of sanctions with traffic offenses. With other minor offenses its role is rather limited and has decreased. There has been a striking shift from the imposition of penal sanctions to sanctions based on administrative law in this area. With major offenses (crimes) the role of the judiciary is still significant and has not diminished over the last 20 years. This despite policy efforts to boost out of court sanctioning.
The Judiciary is a fundamental pillar of the rule of law. It offers legal protection, by judging and, if necessary, penalizing violations of norms in a fair trial. In this way not only justice is done with individual cases. Case law has wider implications: confirmation and development of norms and thus general prevention. To fulfil this aim a certain volume of cases and openness of the judgment process is necessary.

In this article the author reports on an ethnographic research conducted on the Collective Shopping Ban, a measure taken in the Netherlands in an effort to make shopkeepers co-responsible for maintaining safety and security. By describing the practice of the Collective Shopping Ban in The Hague, he investigates how the involved shopkeepers are dealing with offenses like theft, nuisance, intimidation, and vandalism. The author describes the sociological background of banning orders and what the banning of people means in terms of purification of public space.

This article analyses to what extent current responses to crime committed by immigrants can be seen as a modern version of the classical practice of banishment. To that end it analyses three recent policy developments directed at criminally convicted immigration. The analysis shows that during the last ten years there has been a sharp increase in the number of immigrants losing their residence permit following a criminal conviction. Moreover, punishment aimed at criminally convicted immigrants without a legal right to stay is increasingly aimed at permanent exclusion through the practice of deportation. Drawing on the theoretical notions of crimmigration and bordered penality, it is therefore argued that criminally convicted immigrants increasingly see themselves confronted with punishment practices that are the modern equivalent of the classical practice of banishment. This raises important questions about where we should draw the line between insiders and outsiders.

There are different types of banning orders (criminal, administrative and private banning orders) and also various procedures for imposing these orders. According to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (EctHR) it is unlikely that the private banning orders can be labelled as a criminal charge. The nature of the private banning orders is not punitive. These orders are to be regarded as recovery sanctions. However, applying the ‘Engel criteria’ will lead to the conclusion that some criminal banning orders are to be considered as a criminal charge. Accumulation between criminal and private law banning orders might be troublesome, but it is possible. It is recommended that the Public Prosecution Service is cautious when it comes to demanding a criminal banning order, when a private banning order has already been imposed.