The Dutch Minister for Security and Justice recently announced a revision of the sexual offences in the Dutch Penal Code. Part of this revision could be the introduction of several sexual offences that are committed on the internet. The Minister mentioned sexchatting, sextortion and revenge porn. This article describes the present-day possibilities the Penal Code offers in tackling these crimes, and gives insight in the bottlenecks in current penal law. This article also provides a description of several relevant criminal investigative powers in existing and future Dutch procedural law.

Violence in the name of the honour of the family and human trafficking are considered to be different phenomena. But in the impressive body of literature on both types of crime and as seen by specialists from the Dutch National Police, some indications can be found that there is a toxic relationship between the two forms of delinquency: human traffickers can call on the family-honour of their victims in order to blackmail them into prostitution and to keep them working in that field against their will.

The article describes a visit to the Freudmuseum and the Museum of Crime in Vienna.
In addition, the author’s memories are collected about his work in forensic psychiatry from 1979 to 1983.

In early 2016, the Dutch minister of Security and Justice announced a revision of the sexual offences in the Dutch Penal Code. One topic that has been debated in Dutch literature and case law, is whether secretly scanning of naked persons should be criminalised as a separate sexual offence. This article discusses various (recently introduced) criminalisations of secretly scanning of naked persons in different countries, with the purpose of exploring the difficulties of a separate criminal offence.

This article focuses on the experiences that authors gained during a study trip to Japan. In general terms, the main features of Japanese criminal law are being observed. This system resembles the letter of Dutch criminal law, but in practice it appears to differ greatly. Among other things, attention is paid to the strong position of the prosecutor’s office, the high conviction rate, the limited contradictory nature of the criminal procedure, and the relative strong position of the victim. Subsequently, attention is given to some recent reforms, including the democratization of criminal law. Also, authors describe a visit to the Fuchu-prison. This article concludes with the question to what extent we could learn something from the Japanese practice in the Netherlands.

In the near future, the legislator will decide on the criteria to be applied to make a choice between the administrative and the criminal justice system. It is a possibility that the legislator will depart from the so-called ‘open context’ and the ‘confined context’. In his Farewell Speech, Rogier pleaded that the severity of behavior should be the criterion to the applied. When behavior can be qualified as ‘serious’ a criminal procedure should take place and if the behavior is ‘less serious’ the administrative procedure has to be chosen.

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 probation in the Netherlands works more victim conscious since last year. Victim conscious working in probation is defined as: involving the perspective and interests of the victim when working with offenders. This broadly and to the extent it is justifiable from the primary task of the probation to reduce recidivism and promote the re-integration of probation clients/offenders. With this justification is both the moral level (right action) as being involved professional standards (effective action).
The article describes, among other, a study on how the victim consciously work has been implemented within the Salvation Army Probation Service in the Netherlands.

A visa system covered by criminal law could adequately confront the current issues surrounding terrorism and in particular Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTF’s). Classical legal research demonstrates that the idea of creating a criminal offense for breaching this visa system does not conflict with relevant human rights parameters of the European Convention, except in cases where journalists or non-journalists with a strong civil expression would be prevented to undertake obvious journalistic activities. The latter differs during a state of emergency, but this is undesirable given the fundamental role of freedom of expression within democratic constitutional societies.

Crime victims’ compensation is a focal point of interest within the present Dutch penal policy. Coming forward as an injured party, crime victims may claim compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages from the prepetrator. Since the claim is of a subsidiary, civil nature, the decision making may not represent an undue burden to the criminal procedure. To further compensation, the legal criterion for accessibility was extended (2010) and policy measures were taken. The article provides an overview of the most important findings of an evaluation into to date’s practice, paying special attention to the opinion of legal professionals. Focussing on both the preparatory and the trial phase, a multidisciplinary research was executed, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. The results show an increase of the amount of claims awarded since 2007. To date, victims’ compensation is commonly accepted within the Dutch criminal procedure. Nevertheless, the legal professionals point at the potential draw backs that sprout from the acknowledgment of the victim as a participant within the Dutch criminal proceedings.