This article focuses on the ways the NVU, Pegida and Voorpost - three far-right groups from the Netherlands - make use of social media platforms in the year 2017. Our results show that these extreme right-wing groups use social media to spread their ideology, to construct a group identity, and to call for (democratic) forms of resistances. In addition, our findings illustrate that these far-right groups seem to adjust to their digital surroundings: they do not change or conceal their extremist ideas, but rather manage their online content to ensure that their ideologies can be disseminated through social media.

In our 2017 report “Profielen van outlaw bikers and outlawbiker clubs” we concluded, “Dutch members of outlaw motorcycle gangs disproportionally frequently have a history criminal justice contacts”. The attorney representing the Hells Angels in the civil law suit filed by the Dutch public prosecutor requesting a civil ban of the Hells Angels, after consulting an expert methodologist, challenged this conclusion due to the possibility of type 2 and type 1 errors in constructing our sample from a police gang database. Here we calculate the proportion of convicted Hells Angels members under different levels of potential bias resulting from these errors. We find that a realistic estimate of the proportion of convicted individuals among the Dutch Hells Angels membership is between 58-96%, which, at a minimum, is roughly twice that in an age-matched population of male motorcyclists who are not members of an outlaw motorcycle club.

This article relates criminological research on youth delinquency to the social development of adolescents. Starting point is a goal-framing approach which assumes that young people aim for the achievement of two goals: status (‘getting ahead’) and belonging (‘getting along’). Peers form an important context for achieving these goals. Therefore, the role of delinquency in peer networks is examined: on the one hand, the extent to which delinquency contributes to peer status, and on the other hand, how delinquency contributes to the formation of network relationships and, vice versa, how network relationships influence adolescents’ delinquency. Finally, several directions for further research are discussed.

Recent studies show that neurocognitive functioning of people within the criminal justice system might be relevant for judicial intervention and reintegration programs, but the use of this information is hindered by – among other things – a lack of appropriate norm scores for neuropsychological tests. A total of 272 detainees completed the d2 attention and concentration test. This article shows that for the d2 attention and concentration test, the already available norm scores are not appropriate for the use within the criminal justice system. New norm scores for Dutch detainees are provided, based on outcomes of a regression based norm procedure. These norm scores are made freely available.

If, as criminologists, we really want to contribute to solutions for the great challenges of our time, we should be…surfing more. In a dynamic environment full of contradictions, we should be constantly in motion, moving left and right between different theoretical-normative perspectives as well as between methodological perspectives. This paper clarifies that surfing movement with some illustrations. It then proposes three goals for a criminological research agenda that should help us address the great challenges: actual (as opposed to superficial) relevance for practice, causal ambitions and multidisciplinarity. The paper concludes with some reflections about the organization and funding of criminological research.

Two developments are discussed that have a significant influence on the scope and content of the penology of the future, but otherwise have little to do with each other: The expansion of the sentencing field has resulted in a completely fluid research field. However, the important questions of penology can only be answered by integrally mapping and analyzing that sentencing field. For that reason, penology should radically free itself of the limitation of its field of research to the penal sanction. Ongoing insight into the functioning of the brain and the predictability of behavior on the basis of algorithms shine a different light on the portraits of mankind on which we base punishment. It also exposes a range of new possibilities to influence behavior and prevent criminal behavior. It is also part of the research field of penology to question which of those possibilities we want to use and under which conditions.

What role do Dutch criminologists play in the – especially since the onset of the so-called migration crisis – heated national and international debates on the criminalization of migration and border mobility? This will be the central question in this publication. Based on an inventory of national and international peer-reviewed publications written by Dutch criminologists, the article will reflect upon Dutch criminologists’ public role. In addition, based on the observed ‘silences’ in the scholarly debates on the criminalization of migration and border mobility, three avenues for further criminological research will be identified.

Forensic psychiatric treatment plays a mayor role in keeping society safe. However, the expectations about what can be achieved with forensic treatment do not seem to be realistic. This complicates the chances of a successful re-socialization. It is foreseen that the number of patients will increase significantly in the upcoming years.
More effective treatment programs and instruments for risk assessment are needed. For this, the causal relationship between psychopathology and delinquency must be better understood. This requires more criminological research.

In this introductory chapter we provide an overview of criminological research into intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour that currently is, and has been, conducted both internationally and in the Netherlands. The most important findings of these studies are also discussed. Next, possible explanations are discussed for intergenerational transmission of crime in general, and more particularly for families that are involved in more serious and organized crime. Moreover, possible ways in which intergenerational transmission of crime can be prevented are discussed. Finally, we give some directions for future research on this topic and will introduce the contributions to this special issue.

In The Netherlands not much attention has been paid towards the relationship between domestic violence and organized crime. In this contribution the question is addressed why this is. One of the answers is that there is doubt about the moral status of the victim of organized crime: it assumed that the victim has benefited from the proceedings of organized crime. When domestic violence and involvement with organized crime by one of the family members come together, the case becomes more complex and difficult to deal with. For that reason professionals and researchers should pay more attention to the overlap of both phenomena.

Terrorism could be regarded as an extreme type of (violent) criminal behaviour. Against this background, there is much to gain if criminological attention would be extended to terrorism. In this overview, the authors describe how and to what extent criminological theories may provide a significant contribution to underlying causes of terrorism. Previous criminological contributions to the field of terrorism have primarily taken a theory-extended approach, including routine activity theory, rational choice theory and strain theory. However, so far such studies lacked empirical data. Further, to this day, not much is known about the empirical applicability of other criminological theories, including desistance theories, which warrant particular attention. In order for criminology literature to contribute effectively to our understanding of terrorism and to pursue better counter-terrorism policies, empirical evidence should first be obtained. In this way, terrorism researchers, in close collaboration with criminologists, can deepen our theoretical and empirical understanding of this relatively underexplored field.

The present article examines the financial life of 131 jihadi travellers (JTs), also known as foreign terrorist fighters, from the Netherlands. For the purpose of the research, access was acquired to all their banking transactions in the year preceding their departure: over 60,000 transactions in total. Their income from work or employment, various forms of social assistance, student grants, and other income or expenditure were examined. The data provided a good picture of their financial independence, i.e., the extent to which they were capable of making their own living or needed to claim assistance from the authorities. The analysis shows that it is highly exceptional for Dutch JTs to be financially independent. Only 5 percent have sufficient income from work or employment without making any claims on the government for financial assistance, and are free of mounting debts. The low score can for a large part be explained by the fact that almost half of the JTs are under 23 years of age and/or receive a student grant. Their financial picture largely resembles ordinary students. Older JTs (over 22 years of age, and not having received a student grant for at least one year) underperform, however. Only 9 percent are financially independent. Financial support could perhaps be used to monitor or steer recipients’ role in society.

The most recent extensive study on political and administrative corruption in The Netherlands dates back to 2005 (Huberts & Nelen, 2005). Afterwards various studies have been conducted on related subthemes and areas. In this contribution, the state of affairs regarding political and administrative corruption – and the responses to them – in The Netherlands in 2018 is described, based on the results of these studies. Starting with an overview of the nature and severity of political and administrative corruption, the focus shifts to relevant developments in the control and prevention of corruption, partly addressing the causes of the phenomenon.

Unlike criminal career research into the criminal behavior of natural persons, longitudinal research into rule violations by corporations is still scant. The few available studies are mostly limited to US corporations, and suffer from either a small sample size or a short follow-up period, limiting the generalizability of their findings. The present study uses longitudinal data on rule violating behavior of 494 Dutch chemical corporations derived from yearly inspections (N=4.367) of the relevant safety and environmental agencies between 2006 and 2017. The study aims to gain insight in the patterning of rule violations by Dutch chemical corporations, and the extent to which these patterns are associated with sector and corporate characteristics. The results show that rule violation is common among Dutch chemical corporations. A small minority of chronically violating corporations however, is responsible for a disproportional share of all observed rule violations. Using group-based trajectory modelling (GBTM) we distinguish several longitudinal patterns of rule violations in our data. Available sector and corporation characteristics are only weakly associated with the patterns of rule violations identified.

Women are less likely to commit criminal acts than men. This gender gap appears to be particularly pronounced in white-collar crime. This systematic literature review examines existing theories, such as the situational hypothesis and the ‘gendered theory of focal concerns’ and evaluates to what extent they find support in empiricism. The results seem to offer the most support to the ‘gendered theory of focal concerns’. This nourishes the hypothesis that with an increase of women at positions in the upper tiers of the company ladder a decrease in the prevalence of white-collar crime can be expected. However, it is also possible that the explanation of corporate crime does not lie in a lack of femininity, but in a lack of gender diversity. Furthermore, limited access to informal criminal networks, the ‘old boys networks’, seems to play an important role in the gender gap of white-collar crime.

Internationally, research on the experiences of white-collar offenders with the criminal justice system and the consequences of prosecution and conviction is scarce. Such research becomes more relevant, as the response to white-collar crime has become more punitive and more offenders are convicted. This paper presents the experiences of the co-author as a convicted white-collar offender as an autobiographical case-study. In this cases study, the consequences and experiences during four phases (investigation, prosecution, sentence-execution and post-sentencing) are analysed on four live-domains: health, private life, social life and professional life. Such an approach could be a blueprint for further and more systematic study of the experiences with and consequences of criminal justice for white-collar offenders. Such study can shed light on the effects and actual achievement of goals of punishment for white-collar crime.

This article studies the development in the prison system over the period 1837-2016 in the Netherlands. It describes trends in three characteristics of the Dutch prison system: (a) the number of prisoners, (b) the number of cells, and (c) the inflow of persons from the free society. The findings are twofold. On the one hand – when examining absolute numbers – the article shows that three distinct periods can be distinguished: a period of 140 years with low stable numbers (1837-1975), four decades in which the numbers tripled (1975-2005), and a subsequent decade where the numbers halved (2005-2016). On the other hand – when examining relative numbers, i.e. per 100.000 inhabitants, and thus controlling for the growth in population – the article displays that developments in the prison system in the Netherlands between 1837-2016 can best be characterized by a long-term continuous decrease in detention.