Today’s risk based criminal justice policy leaves but little room to tune sentencing decisions to the individual offender’s mental capacities. As a result, sanctioning has become one-sided, being directed towards retribution. However, in the long run such a non-reciprocal concept of sanctioning, implying a denial of the need to facilitate rehabilitation, weakens the social fabric. Moreover, it holds a denial of citizenship towards (mentally ill) offenders. For the past decades, restorative justice has offered alternative solutions to deal with delinquency. Using informal procedures, taking into account peculiarities of the case, including the offender’s mental capacities, offenders are invited to take accountability for wrongful acts. A similar approach has been introduced within the field of mental health services, including the sector of the forensic mental health care. In response to the popular social biological model, a model of restorative treatment has been introduced, implying treatment to be directed towards reintegration, requiring active participation of the patient/offender. Bearing in mind the communalities between both models, we explore the potential of such a restorative citizenship based approach to better the integration of mentally disturbed offenders.

Prevention is very difficult to evaluate. If the situation you are trying to avoid, does not occur, it is likely to continue with prevention. If the situation does occur, it is logical to continue with the already taken preventive measures or even intensify these. This is what we call the ‘prevention trap’. In the first part of the article, a framework is presented for a methodological way to test policy on signals of the presence of a ‘prevention trap’. In the second part this framework is applied on the way the city of Amsterdam is dealing with the brothers and sisters of the top 600 criminal offenders, in the so called ‘Top 600 approach’. Some conclusions are drawn.

The aim of the current study is to provide insight in the support for victim rights among Dutch citizens. Although it is generally assumed that the Dutch public supports these rights, empirical research into this topic appears to be scarce. The opinion with regard to four victim rights was established in two ways. Firstly, respondents were asked about their attitudes and, secondly, about their willingness to pay extra taxes for those rights. Respondents’ attitudes concerning the victim rights in this study appear to be positive; their willingness to pay, however, is low. Findings indicate the importance of combining conventional attitude questions with alternative methods (such as questions about willingness to pay) when studying public preferences and opinions.

In many police investigations, a psychic turns up to help the investigation with his ‘extraordinary knowledge’ of the crime and the crime scene. Little is known about how the Dutch police deals with psychics and their information. We conducted research into this phenomenon through interviews with experts, a review of the legal literature and an online questionnaire for police practitioners. Although a guideline by the public prosecutor’s office states that psychics are not to be consulted without permission, most police practitioners are not aware of this guideline. At the moment, little is known about the actual use of information of psychics in police investigations.

In recent years, not only victims of serious crimes, but also their relatives received increased attention in criminal justice procedures. Victim Support Netherlands started a project in which paid professionals support surviving relatives of murdered victims. Through interviews and questionnaires, a group of 62 surviving relatives was followed for two to three years, to map out what their problems and needs are, how the case manager helped them and how they appreciated the help. Problems and needs include psychological, practical, social and legal matters. The appointment of a case manager appeared to be very valuable for the surviving relatives. Partly because of the case manager, they managed to get back to everyday life.