This article reports on a conceptual model that provides insight into the relationship between Twitter use by community policing officers and citizens’ safety perceptions. The model has been tested using data from a relatively large-scale survey study and these results are supporting the model. Furthermore, a small impact of Twitter use has been found on feelings of safety and judgments about the police. To confirm these findings, further research on a larger scale is necessary. To find out more about the exact positive and negative effects of Twitter use by community policing officers, a more experimental design is required.

In this article we examine which factors are correlated to the rehabilitation of prisoners. Central is the prisoners’ willingness during their imprisonment to work on a successful return in society. Assumptions derived from the theory were statistically tested with data from the Dutch Detainee Survey 2014; a large-scale study, in which prisoners held in all Dutch penitentiary institutions (N = 29) were surveyed (n = 2120). The results are in line with the theory and show that detainees are more positive about their (potential for) rehabilitation when they are more satisfied with a) the way they are treated by correctional officers (staff orientation); b) active deployment of the so-called Detention and Re-integration Plan; c) their daily program and activities, and; d) the experienced autonomy and personal decision-making. These outcomes offer fruitful perspectives on how the prison system can promote a successful return of prisoners in our society.

The Dutch aftercare for former prisoners is strongly developing. This article describes lessons from international experiences with aftercare for former prisoners in three areas of life: alcohol and drug problems, work and housing. Moreover, it discusses which lessons are especially relevant for the Dutch system. The analysis of the literature shows to what extent and under which conditions voluntary aftercare can affect reintegration and recidivism. Conclusions are that various aftercare programs do affect recidivism to some extent, but that the level of success differs substantially across programs and across subpopulations of former prisoners. Both programs that start during detention and continue after release and programs that combine multiple services (e.g. housing services and drug treatment) are most successful. Work programs have the strongest effects for older individuals. In all three areas of aftercare studied in this article, the strongest program effects were found for subpopulations with the highest risk of recidivism. The review also shows that communication between organizations and the integration of services are very important for the success of aftercare programs.

Over nine years after the enactment of the Dutch anti-stalking provision there are still no figures detailing the prevalence of stalking in the Netherlands. This article aims to estimate the prevalence and nature of this form of victimization within the Dutch population. In order to generate these findings the results of the national Police Monitor of 2001 were analysed. Of the 88,607 respondents 24 percent reported a lifetime rate of stalking victimization and for 1.2 to 3.1 percent of the respondents the harassment had begun in the 12 months previous to the study. With almost one in three women (28.6%) and almost one in five men (19.2%), women were significantly more likely to report having been stalked at some time during their lives. In line with previous research age was significantly related to life-time stalking with younger people having greater odds of reporting victimization. (Cor)relations were furthermore found between stalking and having a job, being originally of another than the Dutch nationality and education. But, apart from gender, the odds ratios for those socio-demographic variables were only very small. In most cases (65.6%) the stalker only used one method of harassment with unwanted telephone calls being the method that appeared most in isolation (65.7%). 59.1% of the victims indicated that they felt threatened because of the repetitive harassment. A remarkable finding was that in over 56 percent of the cases the identity of the stalker was unknown.

Since the mid-90s, people can obtain ‘burglary prevention advice’ in Belgium, which means that a burglary prevention adviser will carry out a free assessment of the dwelling regarding the protection against a burglary and will recommend security measures as needed. In 2008, a large-scale survey by postal mail, commissioned and financed by the Belgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, was conducted to examine three main questions concerning burglary prevention advice in Belgium. Firstly, who receives a burglary prevention visit, or in other words what are the demographic characteristics of the citizens who obtain advice? Secondly, what is the extent to which these persons are satisfied with the visit and which elements, related to the advice, are associated with this (dis)satisfaction? Finally, do these citizens implement the proposed prevention measures and what is the role of the financial incentives (e.g. a tax deduction and an investment subsidy) concerning this implementation? Using a stratified random sample, 2,123 citizens were selected of whom ultimately 1,193 persons answered and returned the questionnaire. This paper presents the main findings of this study. We will also draw attention to the risk of an increased societal dualization and exclusion in the field of community safety when burglary prevention becomes predominantly the responsibility of the individual. The results of our survey for instance suggest that certain groups in society, namely the lower educated, tenants and apartment dwellers, are insufficiently sensitized to call upon these advisers. Furthermore, mainly the higher educated and those with higher incomes plan to make use of the possibility of tax deduction.