This paper analyses the association between rural youth violence, drinking alcohol in the weekend and going to the pub, as compared to their peers in more urbanized areas. In addition, the paper analyses whether the gender gap in the use of violence is larger for rural youth. Based on self-report data of 5,062 youngsters aged 14-22 years old, two forms of violence were analysed. The first concerns physical violence: fighting, hitting someone resulting in medical treatment and wounding someone with a weapon. The second comprises behaviour that prepares for the use of violence: threatening and carrying a weapon. These two forms of violence were related to two types of rural areas on the basis of population density. It turned out that youngsters living in the least densely populated areas were not less likely to have engaged in physical violence whereas their peers in more densely populated rural areas had somewhat lower chances to do so. Concerning behaviour that prepares for violence, the analyses showed that in both rural areas, youth were slightly less likely to have engaged in such behaviour. Furthermore, the association between drinking alcohol and the use of physical violence was stronger for youth living in both rural areas. The results also indicate that the gender gap in youth violence is not larger for rural youth. The paper concludes that future research should inquire the specific meanings of alcohol and violence in rural youth culture. Such research should take the diversity of rural areas into account, rather than relying on measures of population density only.

Gold and silver coins were money for centuries. Since the early 17th century there was paper. The gold standard linked the value of the world reserve currencies, first the pound sterling and later the dollar, to gold. Both were ‘as good as gold’. In times of crisis, however, the link was broken. The coins dropped in value and gold rose, as the public continues to see gold as the ultimate money. To counteract this, Roosevelt even decided in 1933 and 1934 to nationalise and prohibit the gold held by the Americans. In 2011, amidst the biggest crisis since the Great Depression, we witness the next attack on gold. This time in the Netherlands, where the glass workers' pension fund (SPVG) was ordered by the Dutch central bank to sell the bulk of its gold assets. The DNB argued that gold is a commodity, but SPVG sees gold as a medium of exchange. What will be next?

In Suriname gold mining has been a source of conflict over the past decades. Conflicts between miners and local populations (Maroons and Indigenous), between large-scale companies and small-scale miners (local and migrant), between the State and the small-scale miners. Different governments have tried to organise the sector, but were never successful. The government Bouterse-Ameraali (since 2010) has established a committee to sort things out. They focus on the economic value of gold, and its potential contribution to the development of the country through tax revenues. In this article the authors argue that the legal informalisation of small-scale mining is the source of the conflicts. This informal status of small-scale mining results from lack of adequate legislation and the non-recognition of land rights. This will not be resolved with the registration for tax paying goals. Formalisation of small-scale mining seems a more efficient step towards the expressed objective of the policy: the development of Suriname.

Comparing an organized crime group to an ‘enterprise’ or ‘firm’ and its key persons to ‘entrepreneurs’ is only a small step to viewing its illegal activities as a business process. Yet, it took until the early 1990s before criminologists started to study the logistics of specific illegal activities. Since then, the Dutch police have adapted to thinking of organized crime in terms of criminal business processes and to erecting barriers (preferably insurmountable ones) to specific steps in these processes. Firstly, the police analyze logistical processes to find weak spots that can be targeted to hinder illegal activities most effectively, either through investigative action or by means of preventive measures. Secondly, law enforcement agencies consider such an analytical approach an attractive tool to explore the viability of involving other public or private parties in setting up barriers. The Dutch investigation authorities have used this concept successfully in the case of ecstasy production, by aiming at the small number of suppliers of particular chemicals and hardware. As regards large-scale (and indoor) cannabis cultivation, however, the approach is less fruitful, because there are no explicitly ‘vulnerable’ stages in the cultivation process. Furthermore, some of the intended barriers can be deemed rather intrusive, such as a plan to persuade banks to withdraw a mortgage if the police discover a cannabis nursery in a person's private home. This raises the question to what extent the police and the judiciary may call in other parties to help them put up barriers to illegal activities, instead of using the conventional tool of criminal investigation.

The main difference between various forms of prevention of organised crime is between primary and secondary prevention on the one hand and tertiary prevention on the other. The latter is directed at diminishing an already existing problem. This article deals with social conditions which promote the arising of organised crime and with relevant specifically vulnerable factors and sectors (primary and secondary prevention). The authors argue that in a way every society gets the organised crime it deserves. Organising and regulating society often has the side effect of creating opportunities for individuals and groups which gain profit by exploiting the illegal markets that arise as a consequence of regulations. Whether the desire for regulation or the prevention of (organised) crime should prevail is a topic for political and social debate.

The recent approach to combating organised crime in the Netherlands emphasizes the importance of interventions aimed at the underlying ‘facilitating structure’ of crime. A great deal of attention is being devoted to professions, companies and services that - consciously or unconsciously - facilitate crime in a structural manner. In addition to a repressive approach to this type of crime, structural hindrances should also be created to aid in combating organised crime. This means that investigative services have to work closely together with each other and other relevant agencies. On the basis of this perspective, the Public Prosecution Service developed the ‘programmatic approach’. The programma-based approach was first tried out as a pilote in 2006 in the field of Human trafficking (trafficking for sexual exploitation). This article investigates what kind of problems have occurred in practice during the pilote, and focuses on an explanation of why cooperation fails.

After a quiet and fluent start, the EU wide environmental policy instrument CO₂ emissions trading has now become a target of hackers and other criminals. The Dutch Emissions Authority (NEa) published a report regarding the fraud. Several fraud types occur, like VAT fraud, hacking and identity fraud. The author analyses the vulnerabilities of the emissions trading system and describes the measures that have been taken to prevent abuse. The emissions trading is in the middle of a transition from a paradise for fraudsters to a safe and secured fortress. It has appeared that cooperation between several expert fields is crucial in order to prevent and solve fraud.

Criminals sometimes use so-called financial facilitators to invest their ill-gotten gains without drawing attention to themselves. These facilitators are experts at getting round anti-money laundering procedures. Because of their expertise and unique capabilities they play an important role in criminal networks. It therefore stands to reason that law enforcement focuses on them. That focus often translates in prosecution when laws are broken. However, what can we do to prevent financial experts in breaking the law? In this article the focus lies on the method of removing excuses. This technique is employed in every day crimes but has not been put to the test in the context of organized crime. Interviews with police officers show that the technique of removing excuses could work under certain conditions. However, it turns out that an important differentiation lies in the sort of activities financial facilitators undertake. Not all financial activities take place in the legal financial-economic system. Instead of distinguishing between the three classical phases of money laundering (placement, layering, integration), a two-pronged focus is proposed on those who are involved in cash based transactions and those who construct smokescreens on paper.

Using the script approach, this article analyses the different stages that characterise the infiltration of organised crime groups in the public construction industry. Three different Italian local contexts with a high presence of organised crime groups (Sicily, Calabria and Campania) are considered. The Sicilian case is analysed by detail using the script approach and following the dynamic of organised crime action: preparation, enabling conditions, target selection, the acts (of violence and corruption) or ‘the doing’, and the post-conditions or aftermath. The script approach helps in a micro-analysis of organised crime that draws on general knowledge on the topic deriving from the macro-analysis currently undertaken in the literature. Because to date this analysis has mainly produced crime control remedies, the author hopes that the microapproach may help in developing more concrete situational crime prevention measures.

The fact that the Netherlands have abolished the death penalty in 1870 does not imply that this criminal sanction doesn't affect the Dutch legal order anymore. As a member of the international ‘legal family’ The Netherlands are confronted regularly with the continuing existence of capital punishment abroad, for instance when a Dutch national is sentenced to death in a foreign country. The (threat of a) death penalty is an important factor when Dutch administrative or judicial authorities have to decide on matters concerning the admission or expulsion of foreign citizens or the extradition of suspects to countries where they run the risk of being sentenced to death. In the Netherlands the enforcement of life sentences can get the character of a suspended death sentence when time and again pardon is denied and the convict will die a prisoner. Long-term prisoners suffer a kind of civil death, being cut off from their families, friends and other social contacts. In sum: enough reasons to focus once more on the ultimate criminal sanction.

Offenders can be deprived from their profession or office by a court. The Dutch legislator has recently increased possibilities for the judge to disqualify offenders who committed certain crimes within their professional occupation. This article discusses a study on the penalty of expulsion from a profession or an office. It appears that this penalty is not often imposed. Most cases concern sex crime cases and fraud cases. Although it is a penalty, the prosecutors and judges general aim at preventing new crimes when considering a disqualification. It is not known whether convicted persons comply to this penalty. The prosecution does not actively supervise observance. Respondents in this study fear that relapse into new crime within a profession happens, but figures are lacking on this point. Positive and negative sides of the disqualification are discussed in the article.

Teenagers between twelve and eighteen years of age are protected by Dutch criminal law against sexual encounters that cannot be qualified as non-consensual. If these teenagers are approached without force they are thus protected against such a contact, but they could have played a sexual active role nevertheless. This paper deals with how officials of the police and justice departments value sexual contacts between youngsters as lewd and in what circumstances these interactions are possibly permissible. What is the motivation for initiating criminal law and how to explain the distinction between the alleged offender and the alleged victim? The juridical valuation of the professionals dealing with criminal law is analysed followed by some critical remarks regarding the protection of sexual active youngsters against other sexual active youngsters as well as the act of sex as transgression.

There is a strange contradiction in the history of Dutch criminal justice. On the one hand, until well into the 20^th Century, it was peculiarly backward in terms of criminal procedure that remained based on principles deriving essentially from the era of the first Dutch republic (17^th and 18^th Century) or even earlier. On the other, The Netherlands was one of the first countries in Europe to lastingly abolish capital punishment without the intermediate phase of continuing executions out of public view. In this, Dutch criminal justice was decidedly ahead of its times. This contribution examines this apparent contradiction that cannot be entirely explained by existing theories on (the abolition of) capital punishment. It must also be seen in the light of the historical role of publicity/transparency for the legitimacy of criminal justice in the Netherlands, its link to a legal culture of public confidence in the criminal justice authorities and the relatively late reception of Enlightenment ideals.

This essay charts the changing status of the death penalty in western societies, from a cultural universal three hundred years ago to a prohibited penalty today, and offers a sociological explanation for that great transformation. The ability to impose the penalty of death is an elementary particle of state power. That power was frequently and spectacularly deployed in early modern Europe as states asserted a monopoly on legitimate violence and absolutist rulers deployed force to subdue their enemies. Once states consolidated their infrastructural power, the ostentatious killing of subjects became less necessary. As liberal politics limited the legitimate use of state violence and established legal protections for individuals, and as cultural change softened state power, the death penalty became increasingly problematic. The character of state power, and the balance between liberalism and democracy, civilized refinement and humanitarian sensibility, explains the pace and extent of death penalty change in specific western nations.

What does a religious perspective imply for the justification of the state imposing punishment on perpetrators of criminal offences under criminal law? As religion is experiencing a revival, it is not a strange idea to examine what a religious perspective can teach us in relation to criminal law. What religious fundamentalism and conservatism have to offer in this respect seems quite clear, namely retributive action by the state, as God's representative on earth, against conduct contrary to the dogmas of the Holy Scriptures. Nevertheless, research shows that conventional believers also often recognize the value of forgiveness and reconciliation. What is not clear, however, is what mysticism has to offer in relation to criminal law. In contradiction to conventional criminal law, from a mystical perspective there is no call for intentional infliction of pain in responding to crime. To avenge evil with evil is dismissed for both moral and practical reasons. Encouraging the spiritual awakening of man forms the alfa and omega of a mystical approach to crime.

Various criminologists describe family and partner relationships as forms of social capital. Also research shows that many delinquents say they have generally good relations with their family. Instead of focusing only on the delinquent's individual responsibility and risk factors, probation work should pay more attention to the protective aspects of the former convict's social environment. The author presents a framework, based on the work of the family therapist Nagy, that provides probations workers with the tools to involve the delinquent's family members in the process towards desistance.

This article discusses some initial findings from the qualitative part of the Sheffield Desistance Study. The aim of the study was to explain the crime drop in early adulthood by tracking the progress of 113 young male offenders towards desistance from crime. The author stresses the importance of getting a better understanding of how criminal careers are shaped by the broader aspects of the experience of young adulthood. The findings are illustrated by four different case studies, followed by some theoretical reflections on the concept of ‘active maturation’. This is clarified by a model categorising some of the processes that individuals go through as they start taking steps towards desistance.

This article is a first report on the longitudinal study of forty Moroccan and Dutch criminal men. The research was started in 1982. The author returned to the subject in 1988. In 2008, the author started a new research project with the same men.
The focus of this article is on the process of desistance. Ten men already ended their criminal period in the late eighties (the ‘early desisters’). In between time, two of them relapsed. Nine men can be called ‘late desisters’. They had many more obstacles to face in their re-integration, such as long-term employment and addiction to hard drugs. The combination of getting regular work, marriage and a permanent place of living is very effective in the process of desistance. But in the end, personal qualities, such as discipline, taking up responsibility and motivation, will be decisive.

On March the first 2009 the compulsory parenting plan was introduced in Dutch law. The plan is a binding agreement between parents on the consequences of the divorce for their children. During the parliamentary debate, the compulsory character of the parenting plan was frequently criticised. The author scrutinises the relevant case law on the parenting plan over the last two and a half years to examine how it operates in practice. Questions about accessibility of the judicial procedure, the minimum requirements and the completion if the parents do not come to an agreement are discussed. The author concludes that considering the judicial decisions and the small amount of publicised case law the compulsory parenting plan does not seem to cause many problems or delays in the divorce proceedings. More research is necessary to determine whether the parenting plan is able to fulfill its goal to reduce the amount of conflicts between parents after a divorce.