In law enforcement animal assisted interventions have become popular. Unfortunately in evaluation studies often animal welfare is not included. The question rises to what extent this work might be harmful for participating animals and what alternatives we may offer. In this contribution we describe how robots have been introduced and are being used in the world of care. Might robots be a good alternative for animal participation in risky situations in law enforcement? We conclude by raising a number of pertinent questions for further research.

Two major shifts in the Dutch policy have changed how social professionals work for migrants. These two refer to the change from a multicultural in an assimilation policy and a participative society where people are more dependent on their network or resilience for dealing with their needs. Based on our exploratory interviews with eight professionals and a focus group of six participants with a non-western cultural background we conclude that what migrants expect from social professionals and what they can offer do not match. It is due to contrasting views and cultural differences. This has a negative impact on their participation.

Incidents involving persons with ‘confused behavior’ are an important and topical theme in Dutch society. The police are often the first to be involved in these incidents because they are the only public organization that has a 24/7 presence on the streets. In 2019, the police registered 96,000 reports of persons who showed confused behavior. It is therefore not surprising that the police have repeatedly drawn political-administrative attention to this situation and indicated that the limits have been reached. That raises the question of how police officers deal with a situation that has actually grown above their heads in daily practice. In this research, based on the theory of street-level bureaucracy introduced by Lipsky, it was investigated how police officers in The Hague use their discretion to cope with this difficult reality.

Rehabilitation of hospitalized offenders is a stepwise process ideally achieved through four consecutive types of leave: supervised, unsupervised, extra-institutional and a probational leave. However, in reality this sequence may often be deviated from. The current study was undertaken to examine the most common deviations and the relationship with how the treatment ended (e.g. positive/negative). File information of 422 offenders previously admitted to a high-secure forensic hospital was used. Deviations from the standard sequence are relatively common. Probational leave is often missing, and one in ten sequences contains a suspension of leave. The relevance for forensic and legal professionals is discussed.

At the level of local government, preventive and repressive measures are used within an integrated- personalized-approach to prevent disturbing and criminal behaviour. This integrated approach is only possible when the professionals involved can share data of subjects in order to get good insight of the existing problems and to find possible solutions. The Startbaan study, which focused on the collaboration within such an integrated-approach on young adults with multiproblems and justice contacts, shows that privacy regulations are perceived as being obstructive by professionals. More knowledge about the GDPR, its legal bases and domain specific regulations is necessary for an integrated-approach.

Interprofessional collaboration in the treatment and supervision of clients in forensic mental health care is of great importance. However, collaboration between professionals within and between settings is not always easy. In this article, different forms of collaboration within the forensic mental health care system are described as well as the most important pitfalls and success factors. Finally, some recommendations are provided for practitioners, organizations and policy-makers to design and facilitate collaboration in forensic mental health care.

Previously we have published an article about misunderstandings regarding trauma and PTSS. In this contribution we deal with other popular beliefs regarding trauma. We focus on trauma among professionals as a consequence of their work. It is explained that a professional does not have to witness violence or another severe case directly in order to develop some form of trauma. Next to that we focus on the misconception that professionals suffering from trauma can receive treatment without support of their loved ones and social network. It is explained that social support is not only relevant but necessary in treating trauma effectively.

The relationship between debts and delinquency is still unclear and knowledge about the prevalence and scope of debts among delinquents, which is needed to systematically explore this relationship, is lacking. The present study contains a systematic and scoping literature review on this relationship and analyzed data from risk assessment and client files (N = 250) from the Dutch probation service. Results show that debt and crime are strongly related and that debts among probation clients are highly prevalent and complex and underline the importance of inquiring more knowledge about debts as a potential risk factor for relapse during supervision.

The Dutch police has noticed that in cases of honour-based violence often people are involved that might suffer from some form of trauma. Over the last years the police has dealt with cases from, for example, refugees that have fled from with war infected regions. Next to that, the road to the north of Europe was also involved with serious safety issues. Therefore the police works together with specialists in the treatment of trauma. In this article some frequently encountered misunderstandings about trauma are described, illustrated with cases of honour-based violence. The first misunderstanding is that all trauma is PTSS; the second is that PTSD explains all the mis happenings in an individual’s life; the third misunderstanding is that EMDR is the effective treatment for all sorts of trauma.

The forensic sector is considered to be a stressful, demanding work environment. Due to the continuous confrontation with disturbing files and challenging clients, (secondary) traumatization and other stressors lurk. Attention to the well-being of the professional working with sex offenders is essential to keep the psychosocial workload under control. However, this appears to be an underexposed topic in practice and literature. To generate more attention, the Dutch-Flemish branch of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (NL-ATSA) organized a symposium on the impact of working with sex offenders. This article is a report of the symposium.

In this exploratory contribution, the central question is what will happen to students when they leave school and start looking for a job in security care. Three developments are addressed in this context: firstly, there are organizational changes: the municipal level has become increasingly important; in the second place, the complexity of the casuistry with which professionals are confronted is highlighted, and in the third place attention is paid to undesirable behavior with which professionals may be confronted while performing their work. What do these aspects mean for the resilience of the upcoming professional and the preparation for working life during training?

A comparative legal research between Dutch and Belgian closed juvenile detention centres, focused on the internal legal status

The Life In Custody-study is a large scale, prospective panel study, aimed to examine the quality of prison life in The Netherlands. This paper describes the LIC-study by giving a detailed overview of the data collection procedure, and strategies to optimize response, and presents the first nationwide results on prison climate in The Netherlands. Results show that the data collection procedures utilized were successful in obtaining a high response rate (which was an exceptional 81%) and reaching a representative group of prisoners. Furthermore, results show that the perceptions of prison climate vary across prison regimes, and to a lesser extent across age groups and time spent in detention.

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.

In 2017 the Probation Service carried out a pilot with the virtual reality (VR)-simulation ‘Don’t you Forget about Me’. In total 13 offenders of domestic violence experienced as a 7-Year old boy a serious fight between parents. The simulation was part of the cognitive behavioral intervention BORG. Four groups underwent the simulation in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. It was assumed that this experience would lead to more empathy, awareness, and self-reflection.
As the results showed, the simulation seemed suitable in BORG. Most of the participants were very positive about it. The fighting parents had a huge effect on them. Self-reported questionnaires administered after he simulation showed a better self-reflection on the behavior of the participants, more sympathy with the feelings of their children and (ex)-partner, and more insight into the damaging effects of the violence. The simulation appeared to be a powerfull device: it made a deep emotional connection, which enabled to create more empathy.