First line police officers need a certain amount of discretion as they have to deal with various and complex situations on a daily basis. In this article the author examines the extent to which police officers have room for discretion in their use of force. We start from Mastrofski’s proposition that in case of decisions to use deadly force (use of firearm) police officers’ discretionary space must be restricted as much as possible. In case of less intrusive use of force, police officers may have more room for discretion. We used data from a small survey in three local police forces in Belgium to examine whether police officers have similar opinions on the decision to use their firearm – in comparison with the decision to use lower levels of force (non-firearm/non-lethal). Furthermore, we compare police officers who are highly trained in the use of force, with less trained police officers. Our results indicate that police officers are indeed more univocal when it comes to decisions to use their firearm, especially in case of more trained police officers.

Although group workers in juvenile correctional facilities (JCFs) are restricted in their actions by many rules and regulations, they still have the opportunity for tailor-made actions. Based on Lipsky’s (2010) theory of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ this article explains what this discretion means for group workers in JCFs and how they deal with it. Based on 24 interviews with group workers, this article outlines how they exercise discretion in a context where group dynamics and dealing with emotions affect their actions to an important degree. In addition, this article describes how group workers deal with dilemmas they encounter.

The editorial introduction to this special issue on street-level bureaucracy (36 years after the publication of Michael Lipsky’s book) draws attention to the important role of frontline workers in the implementation of policy in practice. The two narratives as distinguished by Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2000) – that of government as an institution and that of the frontline workers themselves – are discussed in the light of the use of discretionary power by the frontline workers. The various dilemmas that the frontline worker encounters while doing so are briefly introduced and the role of the emergence of New Public Management and the resulting public-private partnerships since the eighties discussed.

Crime victimization risk is usually calculated by dividing the number of crimes by the size of the local population. This procedure does not account for the mobility of the residents. We develop and apply an alternative procedure that divides the number of crimes by the number of people actually present: the ambient population. The ambient population includes commuters, tourists and other visitors. The regular and the alternative crime rate measures of the four largest cities in the Netherlands are compared using data of the ‘AD Misdaadmeter’. We find that ambient populations are larger than residential populations, in particular in Amsterdam. The differences are small however, and the increased effort of calculating ambient populations does not compensate the increased precision in crime measures. For comparisons between annual crimes rates of cities or municipalities, it is sufficient to divide numbers of crimes by populations.

Studies indicated that detainees are not always allocated to treatment programs based on official guidelines. Street-level bureaucracy theory suggests that this is because government employees do not always perform policies as prescribed. This study aimed to assess whether this also applies to the allocation of offenders to treatment in Dutch penitentiary institutions. This was studied among a group of 541 male prisoners who participated in the Recidivism Reduction program. The results showed that official policy guidelines were, in most cases, not leading when referring detainees to behavioral interventions. Instead, treatment referrals were influenced by a broad range of risk factors, as well as the length of an offender’s sentence.

The fight against outlaw motorcycle gangs is high on the Dutch criminal justice agenda. Yet, much is unclear about the extent to which Dutch outlaw motorcycle clubs are involved in (organized) crime, and the exact role club membership plays in the crimes committed by individual members. This study analyses all court decisions between 1999 and 2015 that were made publicly available through the Rechtspraak.nl database to yield insight in the frequency and nature of (members of) outlaw motorcycle clubs’ court appearances. Results show that members of outlaw biker clubs are convicted for violence and drug offending. In a third of all incidents, fellow club members are among the co-offenders. Membership of an outlaw motorcycle club is often used to put pressure on victims. Non-members also make use of the violent track record of outlaw bikers.

This narrative aims to identify a number of challenges for the future of (green) criminology. It discusses what the three traditional criminological questions about criminalization, etiology and the social reaction imply in a ‘green’ context. For each of those topics, we analyse where the goals of green and mainstream criminology align and pay attention to research projects on these topics in the Netherlands and Belgium. In the end, this allows us to identify the following challenges for the future of (green) criminology: theoretical foundations, methodological creativity, interdisciplinary research projects and dialogue, and a research focus that goes beyond a preoccupation with the Global North.

The External Monitor of Forensic Psychiatric Patients (EMT) aims to increase the knowledge of forensic psychiatric patients and the effectiveness of mandatory forensic treatment. In the EMT, five judicial organizations merged their anonymized digital data on (ex-)patients for research purposes. Data originated from the databases of the NIFP, DJI, AVT, 3RO and WODC. By merging this data, a larger part of the trajectory of a forensic psychiatric patient becomes known. Results show that it is possible to combine data from the digital databases of separate organizations for research and analysis purposes. To illustrate the opportunities of the use of merged data, an explorative study was conducted into a current subject. In this study, 218 ‘tbs-patients’ were included and several characteristics of patients of whom the mandatory forensic treatment has ended were compared with those of patients still under mandatory treatment. Suggestions are made for merging data files and for future research.

Recently, we conducted a study on drug trafficking criminal networks in a Dutch town. In this article, we examine the results of this study by assessing the development of criminal networks and the way in which individuals get involved with these networks. Our analysis of the qualitative data focuses on three central empirical findings derived from earlier (mainly Dutch) research on criminal networks. A first outcome of earlier studies was that criminal networks are not based on a specific kind of crime and therefore do not resemble goal driven companies. Our fieldwork suggests, however, that the networks seemed less ‘flat’ and more goal driven than previously assumed. Second, earlier studies conclude that the structure of social opportunities facilitates a subjects’ inclination towards committing crime. Our study seems to confirm this finding: social pressure from peers and family is strong and encourages involvement in drug trafficking networks. Finally, earlier research pointed out that involvement in criminal networks was not a result of intentional recruitment. In our study we found – anecdotic – evidence of the opposite. We found evidence that suggests that most youth criminals are not ‘persisters’, however, mobs may serve as gateways to organised crime.

Last year the article ‘Episodic memory and interviewing witnesses. What do police interviewers know about this topic?’ (Odinot, Boon & Wolters, 2015, TvC, 57(3), 279-299) was published in this journal. The article describes a study that explored the knowledge of police interviewers about episodic memory. The researchers concluded that police interviewers had insufficient knowledge of episodic memory and that this was related to the lack of psychological terms in the manual of the curriculum of police training. In this article we describe the lack of scientific consensus about episodic memory and the consequences of this for doing research with lists with theses about this subject. Differences between interviewing witnesses and suspects will be discussed. We also question whether it is necessary that police interviewers have thorough knowledge of episodic memory. More important is what knowledge does police need when doing interviews and how are these conducted? Some factors have a negative impact on the quality of those interviews, so we end up with some recommendations for improving the quality of interviews in police practice.