This special issue focuses on the role of sex/gender in Dutch and Belgian criminological and penological research and theory. This introductory article draws the history of thought and research within Dutch-language criminology and explores international developments, in particular the influence of feminist critique on theory and research.This framework serves the positioning of the other contributions, on the one hand research exploring the differences in crime between men and women and on the other hand empirical and theoretical articles focusing on (the social construction of) gender. Finally some innovative methodological findings will be discussed, also with regard to future criminological research.

Over 700 students judged fictitious descriptions of court cases, in which the gender of the offender was systematically varied, as well as a number of aspects pertinent to theories that explain disparities in sentencing between females and males. The results show that females indeed received shorter sentences than males, and that this difference could be attributed to the fact that male student-judges gave women shorter sentences and differential sentencing for violent crimes. We found mixed support for the chivalry as well as for the perceptual shorthand theory. More research is needed, in more realistic settings, to explain gender differences in sentencing.

In the Netherlands, the number of cocaine traffickers arrested at Schiphol International Airport peaked in 2003. In May 2003, sentencing guidelines regarding cocaine traffickers were redefined into a smaller number of categories (wider quantity ranges, less specified offender categories) with lower sentences than before. New guidelines allowed criminal courts more flexibility, and judges were expected to sentence cocaine traffickers more often than before in accordance with guidelines. All cases, at all four applicable criminal courts, against cocaine traffickers that had been arrested at Schiphol in 2003 were analyzed (877 simple court and 994 full court cases). In between 30 and 40 percent of cases sentences were not according to the guidelines (mostly lower), and even more frequently than before the new guidelines had been introduced. Experience as a judge (number of years) was not associated with keeping up with guidelines, but male judges sentenced suspects more often than female judges in discordance with guidelines (and consequently below guidelines). In line with American literature, personal characteristics of suspects appeared strong predictors of the extent judges conformed to sentencing guidelines. Female offenders were twice as often as male offenders sentenced lower than the guidelines. The same result was found for offenders born or living in the Netherlands, versus migrants and offenders living abroad.

Increasingly, instruments for risk assessment have been used for the assessment of future violence. This article provides an overview of the risk assessment instruments that are used in the Netherlands for the prediction of criminal recidivism. The quality of these instruments is regarded by examining studies on the interrater reliability and the predictive validity. The benefits as well as the limitations of risk assessment instruments are discussed. It is concluded that these instruments can be valuable, especially for research on treatment effects in the field of forensic psychiatry. On the other hand, it has to be acknowledged that with risk assessment instruments, the possibility to predict criminal recidivism on individual level is still limited. Psychologist and psychiatrists, presenting a mental health assessment to the court, have to inform the judge correctly about these limitations.