Policy coherence in the area of safety and justice – A longitudinal analysis of service delivery per euro spent in the S&J sector during the period 1980-2016

In the safety and justice policy area, there is a strong intertwining between performances of the various sectors, such as police, judiciary and prison system. The question is whether policy takes these interdependencies into account sufficiently. Are the resources used – from a broader wealth perspective – optimally allocated amongst the various safety and justice provisions? The authors answer this question on the basis of an integrated time series analysis of the productivity development of the Dutch safety and justice system in the period 1980-2016. The analysis shows that productivity of safety and justice services has hardly changed since 1980. At best, in 2016, citizens will receive as much value per euro of taxpayers’ money as in 1980, but probably slightly less. It is striking, however, that the S&J system as a whole operates more efficient than the sum of its parts (the individual sectors). There have been substantial changes in the allocation of resources over time. Obviously money from the police was transferred to the judiciary and municipalities.

Based on a retrospective analysis of six large scale and fatal fires in the Netherlands, an improvement in terms of meeting the needs of victims can be seen. A comparison of the legal settlement of these fires shows mayor differences in the fulfilling of different aspects of social justice that are identified in social psychology. Two victim needs commonly associated with retributive justice – financial compensation and a thorough, neutral investigation into the causes of the disaster – were fulfilled to a higher degree after the most recent fires than after those that occurred decades ago. The legal settlement after the New Year’s fire in Volendam (2001) appears – at least on paper – to have been more just from the victim’s point of view than the ones after the other incidents. Empirical research into the experienced social justice after the New Year’s fire can be valuable to assess the factors that can lead to a just settlement after disasters.

Within the group of Dutch foundlings, 28% are migratory foundlings: children coming from abroad to the Netherlands (inbound foundlings), and children going abroad from the Netherlands (outbound foundlings). According to the rational choice theory, there is at some point a rational decision behind human action, based on consideration of costs and benefits – terminology reminiscent of the origins within economic science. When viewed from that perspective, cross-border abandonment may be regarded to be a conscious effort to hinder detection. After all, abandonment of foundlings has been a criminal offence in the Netherlands since at least the Middle Ages. There is therefore also a vested interest in not attracting attention. Anyone abandoning a child and wishing to protect their identity will be attracted to locations that lack effective supervision, defined as guardianship within the criminological routine activities theory. However, the less familiar a location, the trickier it is to avoid visibility. Does the rational consideration of costs and benefits result in migratory foundlings being abandoned just over the border (in order that the perpetrators attract the least possible attention) or actually further inland (in order to detract from the cross-border activity, for example)? Is there a comparable choice in terms of distance when people abandon native foundlings – children found in their country of birth? Relevant questions indeed, as greater insight into such variables can support the direction taken by detection activities. This study is an exploratory analysis of the distance between the domicile or birth location and the abandonment location of cross-border foundlings. The results will then be compared with the distances in the case of domestic foundlings.

Intimate partner homicide (IPH) constitutes one of the most prevalent types of homicide. This study aims to assess the nature and prevalence of intimate partner homicide in the Netherlands in the period 2009-2014. In doing so, we make use of police data, court data, and media articles. Findings show that IPH occurs 29 times per year, resulting in a victimization rate of 0.20 per 100,000, similar to other Western-European countries. Our results further show a decline in IPH in the last years. IPH in the Netherlands mostly occurs in heterosexual relationships, and involves male perpetrators and female victims. Finally, we reflect on possible causes for the decline of this type of homicide.

The Dutch Police Act provides the police with the legal power to gather information about a person on the internet as long as this does not cause more than ‘a limited violation of privacy’. If the police are gathering more information about a person they need a special legal power laid down in the Dutch Code of Criminal Procedure. The dividing line between ‘a limited violation of privacy’ and ‘more than a limited violation of privacy’ is not always clear. The legislator is preparing a new piece of legislation to provide the police with more clarity. This article discusses the suggested law article with respect to the gathering of information from open sources. Furthermore, this article suggests to not only regulate the amount of information the police are gathering but also the kind of tools that the police use (simple search machine versus an advanced web crawler).

In this article the following question is answered. What is the modus operandi of human smugglers that smuggle Syrian migrants to the Netherlands in de period 2014-2016? Content analysis of police and Royal Marechaussee files, interviews with experts and Syrian migrants and literature research has revealed that: Syrian migrants in first instance use the South-Eastern route overseas from Turkey to Greece, for which they pay 1200-4000 euro to a smuggler, depending on the quality of the boat. From Greece some travel over land on the Balkan route. Several means of transportation are used on this route, with smugglers asking prices ranging from tens to hundreds of euros. Also they travel large parts on their own. Others are smuggled by airplane, for which they need (false) documentation. Smuggling by plane tends to be successful when departing from a small airfield, when made a detour through visa-free countries and/or a good quality (false) travel document. Prices range from 2.000 to 14.000 euros. Migrants mostly pay cash through irregular ‘banks’, a third party that plays an important facilitating role within several smuggling networks. These networks consist of several cells, with in these cells leaders and ‘employees’ and are located on migration routes and ‘hubs’ like Istanbul, Athens and Milan. The South-Eastern route is mostly in hands of Turkish criminal networks, and the continuation of the journey by airplane or through Milan over land is in hands of Syrian Dutch smugglers, the Balkan route seems to be mainly operated by individual smugglers. Within these smuggling networks the most important roles are: the recruiter, who is responsible for making contact with migrants on migration hubs or social media. The organizer/leader who coordinates activities along the smuggling route and calls employees to account. And finally the driver. Responsible for transporting the migrants and instructing them. Based on these findings several recommendations were made that can be found in this article or full research rapport.

This paper tries to answer the question why defendants use violence against police officers and whether, and if so how, they construct justifications for their own behavior. The study consists of an analysis of the situational aspects of violence against police officers and the characteristics of suspects. In addition, some suspects were interviewed about the incident in which they were involved. They were asked what their perception of the situation was, and what the background of the violence was. They were also asked for their opinion on the image of the police in general, and for their knowledge and perception of the relevant laws and regulations. The conclusion is that the motives for violence against a police officer lie in their belief that all men, police officer or not, are equal and should be treated with respect. Suspects feel treated unfairly and disrespectfully by police officers. Suspects feel that in such cases they are entitled to use force. Suspects are not aware of the differences between their own rights and responsibilities in such a situation and the authority that police officers legally have to use of force in order to perform their legal tasks.

Child homicide is a phenomenon that not infrequently leads to shock and societal unrest. However, the precise nature and scope of child homicide in the Netherlands remains unknown. This article attempts to fill the gap in our current knowledge by reporting descriptive research on child homicide in the Netherlands in the period 2009-2014. Further, this article aims to assess if media attention regarding child homicide brings about a so-called copycat-effect. By means of descriptive statistics, case, victim and perpetrator characteristics of 74 cases of filicide are assessed.