In the Netherlands, someone who disagrees with an administrative order is only allowed to seek redress with the administrative courts after he has lodged an objection with the administrative authority responsible for the order. Administrative authorities have much freedom with respect to the organization of their objection procedure. Their freedom concerns two aspects of handling objections. Firstly, they can choose between setting up an independent external advisory committee or using only their own personnel in preparing their decision. Secondly, they can choose to model their objection procedure after the procedure before the administrative courts or to opt for a more consensual, as opposed to a more conflictual, style of dispute resolution. This article focuses on the question to what extent results of recent research can help administrative authorities in making a choice between these options. While the available research does not provide specific and finite answers as to which way the procedure should be organized, it does show that it is important that the procedure is characterized by information, consultation and neutrality.

How to make empirical legal research successful? This article seeks to find an answer. It does so by building on experiences in the US with empirical legal research. Three themes are identified that should be considered when thinking about advancing empirical legal research in the Netherlands, and possibly in other countries. First, empirical legal research should address topics that the legal community can relate to and that are considered relevant. Second, empirical legal research should educate the legal community about the possibilities and pitfalls of empirical legal research in addition to conducting empirical legal research. Third, legal scholars should be educated in conducting empirical legal research. The combination of these three elements is likely to determine empirical legal research’s success.

The American Legal Realism movement, which originated in the beginning of the twentieth century and was active until the Fifties, can be seen as one of the founders of current Empirical Legal Studies because of the importance it attached to social scientific knowledge on behavior of – for instance – judges and others involved in the judiciary. The author sketches several characteristics of Legal Realism at that time. Exploring their range of thought he also examines whether Legal Realism’s studies can be seen as a research program. The recent emergence of New Legal Realism in the US and elsewhere leads to the question what characterizes this (re)new(al) movement. Finally it is argued that American Legal Realism especially contributed to scientific progress by posing new questions, changing focus and by stressing the importance of empirical evidence.

Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) are studies investigating the law in the real world, using empirical methods. Internationally, ELS is on the rise. However, not much is known about what is being done around ELS in the Netherlands. This article describes the results of a systematic review, investigating how many PhD researchers who defended their thesis at a Dutch law faculty in 2015 have collected empirical data, what topic they investigated, which method they used and what background they have. The findings are that 33% of the PhD theses could be labelled as ELS. The majority of ELS were conducted by researchers who have a social science degree. Some of the (only few) lawyers collecting empirical data did not aim to conduct ELS, even though their research questions were very empirical. It is concluded that more empirical education and research funding are needed to stimulate lawyers to conduct more ELS.

Findings of empirical research may have direct or indirect relevance to legal practice and policy. This article investigates the relevance of findings from both research in sociology of law and legal psychology and law for legal practice and policy. It then discusses an empirical study in the Netherlands among scholars from these two disciplines into actual use in practice of empirical findings. A distinction is made between direct and indirect application of empirical findings. Both a survey and face-to-face interviews have been conducted. Findings suggest that, although the criminal justice system and policymakers do apply empirical knowledge to a certain degree, the actual use of empirical results seems defective.

In the regulation of private law relationships, the concept of informed choice-making is an important point of departure for policymakers. As a result, professionals and traders are often under a legal duty to offer certain information to the public in order to inform, persuade or warn against dangers. Policymakers and academics alike tend to refer to findings from purely experimental studies to underpin the effects and overall effectiveness of such information duties. This contribution argues that such studies have limited value as a basis for policymaking. Moreover, it is argued here that policymakers may in fact benefit from practice-oriented research which lacks significant findings.

Neighborhood watch schemes have become increasingly popular in the Netherlands. Drawing from data from 340 municipalities and fieldwork in four districts, the article shows how neighborhood watch groups have developed in the Netherlands and illustrates how they contribute to lower crime levels and collective efficacy, advancing theoretical notions from the literature. However, this form of coproduction of public safety is not without its moral problems. Stigmatization, ethnic profiling and excessive social control are real issues.

This article summarizes the results of a study into new innovative forms of volunteer work which could possibly help the Dutch National Police to increase the number of volunteers. The empirical data were collected by a desk study, the analysis of five case studies and two focus groups. Three different themes were analyzed: mobilizing target groups, matching expectations, and formalization and institutionalization of volunteering work. Public organizations in general don’t realize enough the value of volunteers. Often there is lack of a clear vision, while more attention should go to managing expectations, customization, furthering the education of police volunteers, acceptance and support, guidance and support, recognition, appreciation and reward, and finally more room for volunteers.

This article examines how Dutch-Moroccan juveniles from the Schilderswijk in The Hague, a neighborhood known as relatively unsafe, experience neighborhood watch and how they cope with it. Does neighborhood watch make juveniles to reduce or to continue their deviant behavior? The authors found that particularly neighborhood watchers from their own ethnic community (‘residential fathers’) have a positive influence on juveniles. Juveniles tend to obey them more because they feel treated with understanding and respect. Also they feel uncomfortable when realizing that supervisors from their own community might know their parents and families and might tell them about their deviant behavior. The role of the family in reducing deviant behavior of migrant juveniles was not yet mentioned in the literature.

The article is an ethnographical study of a program called ‘Community Governs’ (Buurt Bestuurt) in Rotterdam’s neighborhood Hillesluis. ‘Community Governs’ is a community-based program which goal is to solve crime and disorder problems. The article investigates the role of the local government in this program. Three different roles are discerned: (1) performance, (2) procedural justice, and (3) participation. The results indicate that to the residents of Hillesluis the performance by the local government is the cornerstone of ‘Community Governs’.

Community WhatsApp consists of a group of local residents sharing information among each other on suspicious situations in the neighborhood through a smartphone app. In the southern Dutch city of Tilburg the author examined whether Community WhatsApp stimulates people to report suspicious situations through the emergency number 112. The stimulus is possibly the appreciation of other participants for being attentive and taking the initiative to call the emergency number. The author found that Community WhatsApp contributes to the diminishing of crime due to the mechanisms of disruption of criminal activities and deterrence.

In the concluding article of this special issue on civilian participation in public security it is argued that this term covers many different phenomena, from neighborhood watchers cooperating with the police to extremist militia. Much of the literature on civilian participation implicitly and wrongfully has an instrumental perspective. The participation of civilians in public security however, is much more than just an instrument of public administration or the police. Not all activities of citizens in the field of public security are decent or according to the perspective of the administration and the police. Moreover, there is no consensus on what public security exactly means, while the motives of people to get involved in public security activities differ greatly. Mobilizing citizens on the basis of fighting crime bears the risk of producing differences and conflicts in society instead of creating open, tolerant and inclusive communities.

This article gives an overview of the changes in the Dutch marital property regimes during the last twenty years. This is preceded by a discourse sketching the reasons for this legal modernization trajectory and the history of the community of property and standard prenuptial agreements.

In this article attention will be paid to the radical societal changes in respect of informal cohabitation. The rate of extramarital child birth has increased to over 50% of all first-born children. Family law is traditionally focused on marriage, which was for a long time the only acceptable relationship type. The question addressed in this article is whether the law of parentage and the law of parental responsibilities should be reformed in order to meet the needs of modern families.