Criminological literature shows that criminals involved in organized crime benefit from positive images in the media. By opening a hospital or donating funds for the development of a football field they try to present themselves in a cordial way and as good citizens to the public. Using the media to present themselves as animal lovers is a very effective manner to go for public admiration and sympathy. In this contribution is investigated how this mechanism works and why it is so effective.

With the development of the ‘digital society’ the information about crime on the internet is increasing rapidly. This creates the necessity for clarity about the boundaries of open source research by law enforcement agencies. However a specific article in the Code of Criminal Procedure lacks. While waiting for this article the police, the prosecution office, criminal defense lawyers and judges are struggling to find these boundaries. Nevertheless are they the only ones that can bring this clarity by informing themselves and exploring what should be legitimate.

Persons who suffer from dementia could potentially commit serious crimes. By studying 22 casus of settlements in cases of serious crimes allegedly committed by a demented person, published on ‘rechtspraak.nl’, the mode of settlement in these cases was established and problems in that field were identified. The group of dementia sufferers proved to be heterogeneous which resulted in a great variety of settlements within the criminal proceedings. However, problems do occur and certain aspects of these problems are not resolvable within the current Dutch penal systems. Reflection on this issue is desirable, as the number of people who suffer from dementia will increase considerably in the near future.

Human traffickers are usually depicted in public discourse as evil villains: the crème de la crème of organized crime. Although this image has also been dominant among scholars for a long time, it has become increasingly controversial. On the one hand, this debate is fueled by discussions amongst criminologists on criminal networks, on the other hand by the expansion of the legal definition of the crime since 2005. Apart from exploitation in the prostitution sector, various other forms of human trafficking are distinguished now, including labor exploitation. This article explores the question of which organizational forms play a role in labor exploitation. Through a review of the empirical research literature on labor exploitation, the authors show that in the field of labor exploitation, there is probably less involvement in criminal syndicates or criminal networks that maintain contacts with other criminal networks. In many cases, labor exploitation is committed by individuals or family businesses, or smaller loosely organized networks that are not necessarily embedded in other criminal networks. For researchers and policy makers alike, it is therefore advisable not to approach labor exploitation exclusively from the perspective of transnational organized crime.

In the ‘participation society’ it is expected that citizens actively contribute to solving societal problems, including health care, immigration and security issues. A somewhat similar responsibilisation culture is visible in prisons, where prisoners are held responsible for their own rehabilitation. This article problematizes the way in which prisoners’ agency is promoted in Dutch prisons, considering prisoners’ constrained agency and the normative expectations that are tied to the approach. This critique is advanced through discussion of the promotion/demotion system that has been used in Dutch prisons since 2014. This system, comparable to the Incentives and Earned Privileges system in England and Wales, espouses both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ behavioural norms. The soft behavioural norms reflect a citizenship ideal that extends beyond compliance with the law. It is argued that these normative expectations tied to agency have a limiting effect on prisoners’ autonomy. This article argues in favour of a shift from the citizenship ideal to an autonomy ideal, which applies the principle of minimum restrictions. Furthermore, access to education, reintegration courses and contact with family should be treated as a right, rather than a privilege, in order to maximise autonomy and minimise the harmful effects of imprisonment.

Reducing the number of suicides in prison has been highlighted as an international priority. To date, however, studies examining prison suicides in Belgium are lacking. Therefore, adopting a retrospective record-based approach, we sought to investigate all suicides occurring in the whole Belgian prison estate during a 17-year period. The results underline the need for suicide prevention among prisoners in Belgium, and echo prior findings that restrictive preventive measures should be combined with psychosocial interventions in order to address the causes of prisoners being suicidal. Such strategies are ideally embedded within a comprehensive suicide prevention policy on a national level.