This editorial offers an introduction to the current issue.

Met gepaste trots presenteren wij het eerste nummer van het Tijdschrift voor Bijzonder Strafrecht & Handhaving, een tijdschrift met de ambitie zich als academisch vakblad te richten op academici en andere professionele beoefenaren van het bijzonder strafrecht, inclusief het bestuurlijke handhavingsrecht, voor zover dit mede van betekenis is voor de strafrechtelijke handhaving van het financieeleconomisch recht. Zowel vanuit de politiek als de rechtspraktijk neemt de aandacht voor de bestrijding van financieel-economische criminaliteit de laatste jaren sterk toe, terwijl ook binnen de wetenschap met steeds meer nadruk specifiek wordt stilgestaan bij het bijzonder deel van het strafrecht.

At the end of 2000, a pilot project began in Flanders (Belgium) to offer family group conferencing for juvenile offenders. Since June 2006, this restorative practice – together with victim-offender mediation – has been inserted in the new Youth Justice Act, making conferencing available in all judicial districts in Flanders. Five years later, however, the mediation-services had to conclude that the number of referrals for conferencing remains rather limited. This observation inspired the mediation services to take actions to bring conferencing more to the attention. This article reports on the findings of a study that was part of this process. Based on (1) an analysis of all conferencing-files that were referred between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 31, (2) focus groups with youth court social workers and criminologists working at the level of the public prosecutor and (3) surveys conducted with youth judges, the study aimed to identify and discuss barriers and obstacles within the current referral practice of conferencing in Flanders.

This special issue introduces the topic of cybercrime to Dutch criminology. First, it raises the major substantive issues that computer technology involves for criminology, in terms of crime volume, people involved in crime, and the ways that crimes are committed. Also, it deals with research literature on cybercrime on various topics, such as survey methodology, crime prevention and Internet applications open to justice professionals in the fight against crime. Overall, the article concludes that much research remains to be done in this relatively new field.

In contrast to the societal debate, the topic of religion and crime is only scarcely present in contemporary criminological research. A special issue on this theme hence seemed very relevant. Even though the editors launched an open call, the submitted proposals were almost always related to Islam. In this introduction we therefore reflect on questions and themes that, in our opinion, should be included in this special issue on religion and crime. First, we give a short overview of Belgian, Dutch and American research on the missing theme of sexual abuse in the church. Second, we discuss the complex concept of ‘religion’. Third, we assess the complex relationship between religion and crime and reflect on the question of whether and when religion leads to more or, on the contrary, less crime. We end this introduction with a brief overview of the selected contributions for this special issue.

This editorial offers an introduction to the current issue.