Criminologists have by and large sought to explain crime by the deficiencies people may have. It took till the 1970s until the idea that crime can also be caused by structural power inequalities got an actual name in criminology: crimes of the powerful. Starting with the works of Willem Bonger and Edward Ross in the early 20^th century, the author analyses how critical criminologists like Frank Pearce introduced the term ‘crimes of the powerful’ in the 1970s and how this concept was subsequently applied to gender- and racial inequalities, state crime, corruption et cetera, whilst pointing at the topical relevance of using a lens of ‘crimes of the powerful’ as a sensitising concept to analyse present-day problems, ranging from sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church to the banking sector or indeed the expropriation of indigenous lands in the Amazon by soy-farmers and timber traders.

Contrary to its allies in other countries, the sex industry decriminalization movement in New Zealand, embodied by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC), achieved its goal in 2003. This article explores the reform of the sex industry policy in this country on the basis of a Social Movement Concept. Apart from the specific New Zealand culture, particularly the interaction between three social political aspects – awareness, political opportunities, and a strong social movement organisation – can be identified as crucial factors in realizing a decriminalized sex industry environment. The enactment of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 meant a unique and huge success for a small sex workers movement.

Bill Cosby, Jimmy Savile and Gerrit Achterberg lived in different periods, in the US, UK, and the Netherlands. They were heroes because of what they accomplished during their professional careers but all three turned out to have committed serious crimes. Disclosure is painful, not only for the hero who comes to fall but also for the community that finds itself redefining moral standards when losing a celebrated insider. For this reason, the crimes of these three men have been concealed and kept secret for years. In comparing the three cases, this article tries to find out who decides on keeping the hero on his feet, how this is done, and if this changes over time.

It is common knowledge that the police in executing its duty as “rule enforcer” disposes of certain discretionary powers. Because of the heavy workload and the often ambiguous legislation, the police officer needs to decide on a selective basis when, how and towards whom he/she will act. These discretionary powers are present in proactive identity controls and already provoked strong reactions in the past. The media accused the police of over-controlling certain minority groups. With this ethnographic study into the Belgian practice of identity controls, in which we observe and interview police officers, we wish to get a better view of the way in which identity controls are executed. Although the research is still ongoing, we have already been able to establish that the decision-making process is based on a police feeling which police officers claim to have and which is formed by (a combination of) different triggers attracting their attention.

Most state-corporate crime research is focused on crime or harmful outcomes in or by democratic states. The goal of this article is to investigate the applicability of this concept to relations between economic actors and non-democratic state actors. The concept of state-corporate crime is applied to three contexts in which corporations have become involved in international crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Each representing a turning point in the academic and public perception of ‘business and human rights’, the contexts that are analysed are Nazi Germany (1993-1945), Apartheid South Africa (1948-1994) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC; 1996-now). It is concluded that in non-democratic states with totalitarian of authoritarian regimes (such as Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa), the concept of state-corporate crime is applicable and explanatory. In such strong states, economic and state actors make use of mutual benefits while, on the whole, state-interests prevail. As a result, the harmful outcome of the dynamics between corporations and states can best be described as corporate facilitated state crime. In weak states (such as the DRC) economic actors are generally more powerful while their involvement in international crimes also runs via non-state actors. The blurred lines between economic actors and state actors (and their interests) makes it difficult to apply the concept, in its different forms, to state-corporate cooperation in weak states and ‘new’ wars.

Criminologists decided over the last few decades that it is important to study international crimes, meaning genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, from a criminological perspective. With the international community taking up the responsibility to protect populations from these crimes and the prominence of international criminal justice on the world stage, it is argued that international criminology should embrace international relations more as an important sub-discipline.

In 2015, South-Korea and Japan came to a ‘final’ agreement concerning the ‘comfort women’ issue. This contribution reveals that this deal signals the next stage in a process of denial through which Japanese authorities have structurally denied the women’s’ victimhood. Taking a discourse analytical approach, the contribution investigates this historical process of denial and its implications. The analysis shows that denial takes several forms and performs different functions throughout the process. It demonstrates that denial is an interactional phenomenon, has different psychologies underlying it, and that it operates on different levels. Denial ultimately contributes to a state of continued victimization.

This contribution aims to discuss the main outcomes of the recent UNGASS (United Nations General Assembly Special Session) on Drugs that took place in New York from 19 to 21 April 2016. Based on my own participation in the preparatory discussions and political negotiations as civil society representative (through the work of NGO Transnational Institute), I argue that political divisions and entrenched institutional dynamics have transformed what could have been the beginning of the end of the war on drugs into a wasted opportunity for changing the status quo of the present world regime regarding the production, trafficking and use of illegal drugs. Despite high initial expectations after several governments expressed a clear concern about the effects of purely repressive policies, and the UN decision to organize the session 3 years earlier than planned, very soon it was clear that the session would not imply real changes in the current policies. The agenda setting was non-transparent and controlled by the most conservative factions and countries, largely excluding the views from NGO’s and academics in the final adopted resolution. The final document poorly reflects the rich discussions and developments that are taking place in many countries of the world, particularly the debates and policy developments in ‘the Americas’. A positive note is that the unchanged international UN conventions on drugs can hardly cope with developments taking place on cannabis policies in countries such as Canada, Uruguay, United States or Jamaica. Also other countries are more and more prepared to push for change on other essential questions, including the application of death penalty for drug offences, the access to controlled medicines, or the explicit application of ‘harm reduction’ approaches.

Various studies show that the views on the drug problem and appropriate policy responses have undergone profound changes from the 1960s onward. This article is analysing one of these changes, the decriminalisation of drug use, reflecting a fundamental change of view: understanding drug use as a health issue and not as crime. A useful heuristic to understand this type of change is Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm concept. He sees a paradigm as a set of beliefs that are shared by a scientific community and accepted by a wider community. A paradigm change is therefore a socio-psychological process rather than rooted in new scientific or research facts.
The author analyses the change from the dominance of a crime to the dominance of a health paradigm reflecting its social-historic context, starting with the widely shared concerns about substance use related health problems in the 20th century. These concerns translated into two different views on the essence of these problems, a crime and a health paradigm. The first served as fundament of the international drug control efforts, resulting in the still governing drug prohibition. Yet, the health paradigm was also of influence from the start and gradually gained weight. From the 1970s onwards the health paradigm became more important as part of a wider reform movement. It started in the Netherlands and the UK as bottom-up process criticising criminalising the users of illicit drugs as inappropriate, detrimental for their health and inhumane. The health paradigm was seen as more appropriate.
The author reflects on the benefits and disadvantages of the health paradigm. Its primary benefit is that it helps to understand the health problems related to drug use. A key disadvantage is its close relationship with the disease paradigm. The latter fits well with the generally negative view on drugs as dangerous or evil. It is encompassing the risk of ‘pathologising’ all forms of drug use and denying phenomena of unproblematic use for, among other things, recreational or spiritual purposes. Like the crime paradigm it can serve for control purposes. The drug user remains subject of control or disciplining policies and is not in charge of his/her own life. An additional problematic issue is that ‘softening’ the approach towards the users seems to be mirrored by a harder, more punitive approach to the producers and sellers of the substances, which are seen as villains, making available the drugs which deserve harsh punishment for ‘devastating’ the lives of users.
The author concludes with a short discussion of the well-being paradigm as possible alternative for the health paradigm. It covers a broader spectrum than the health paradigm and helps to grasp the negative impact of (problem) drug use, reducing well-being, but is also useful in understanding the positive sides, enhancing well-being.

While in the sixties hackers were the heroes of cyberspace, they are nowadays often perceived as the archetype cybercriminal. From the perspective of labelling theory, this empirical study examines how hackers feel perceived by society at large, how they perceive themselves as ‘others’ and how they view themselves in relation to ‘others’. Our research shows that hackers – despite of an experienced negative labelling – view themselves as positive ‘others’. We conclude that the features of the hacking phenomenon itself (skillset, mindset, own morality) in combination with the digital context in which they operate, enable hackers to avoid a ‘spoiled identity’.

Triggered by the recent Paris attacks the authors make an attempt to answer the question how liberal democracies can react to religious extremists that respond with violence to utterances they consider to be blasphemous. After a brief historical survey of the reactions to blasphemy in penal law and philosophy, the authors compare blasphemy laws and their relation to the freedom of speech in various European countries. Then they analyse the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the U.S. Supreme Court. In their conclusion the authors defend the position that liberal democracies should be cautious in order to prevent the principles of liberal democracy from being subverted by self-censorship induced by fear of extremism.

A taboo serves the social order for it facilitates social control. This article will focus on taboos related to sexual contact by youngsters. The way authorities guard sexual taboos is indicative of the way authorities envision the organization of society. It is this organization through the control of youth and sex which will receive attention. In the classic study by Mary Douglas on pollution and taboo dirt is understood as ‘matter out of place’. The sexual teenager is an illustration of this ‘matter out of place’ because it is difficult to categorize sexual teenagers on the basis of asexual children and sexual adults as an organizing principle for society. In criminal law lewd conduct by youngsters refers to wrong sex at the wrong age. By criminalizing these sexual transgressions the proper place of youth and sex is once again restored. This is necessary for it will be argued that the interests of society are somewhat under pressure because of transgressions when it comes to children as asexual and when it comes to sex as something for within a relationship. The perpetrator of lewd conduct should be understood as a scapegoat reestablishing when and how sex should take place. By restoring the asexual child and the sexual relationship it is hoped sex and youngsters can once again offer some guidance in a social order lacking these clear markers.

Journalists are accustomed to investigate and interpret current forms of violent conflicts and massacres. Psychologists and social scientists lag behind and seem to focus more on ‘remote’ forms of evil, often focusing on forms of authoritarian behaviour and obedience, especially related to the Holocaust. It is striking that reflections on collective violence are often ignored by criminologists. How can this ‘distance’ be explained? Why is there little incentive to study ‘evil’? In this introduction we first discuss the difficult issue of how to define ‘evil’ and we clarify its various meanings. Then we focus on the Holocaust, an oppressive theme that still instigates much debate. In particular, the thesis of the ‘banality of evil’ is controversial. This interest in appalling forms of mass destruction – by theologians, ethicists and historians – raises once again the question why criminological reflection and research of barbarity remains underdeveloped.

The central question of this contribution is whether slavery was considered in the Netherlands at the time as something normal, an argument which is often heard in debates about this phenomenon today. This paper shows that during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, slavery was indeed something that happened far away from home, however, all the time voices could be heard in this country opposing at least the cruelties of the slave system, or even the basic incompatability of slavery and christianity. It even turned out to be a public problem with the hundreds of enslaved people who came over time with their owners from Suriname or the Dutch Antilles to this country, and after a while became free citizens, because in the Netherlands itself slavery was not allowed.
During the second part of the eighteenth century in literary and political Dutch circles the individual voices against (the cruelties of) slavery turned more or less into a choir. These opponents of the system were obviously influenced by and often fervent supporters of the Enlightenment and its ideals for mankind of freedom, equality and brotherhood. Eventually, however, in 1797 the revolutionary Dutch National Assembly in its first constitution voted against an article meant to abolish slave trade and slavery in the near future. It took more than two generations to finally settle this question in 1863.

This article examines the transformations in form and function of rituals in the squatting movement in Amsterdam. Upon roaring early years, rituals emerged around the search for houses to squat, the actual squatting and evictions. These rituals were recognized and used by squatters as well as other parties and they have contributed to the reduction of violence. Meanwhile, squatting in the Netherlands was prohibited and the question arises if, in this new situation, form and function of rituals have changed too. The findings shed some light on the broader link between rituals and resistance.

Over the past couple of decades, the Netherlands unmistakably has developed into a Garlandian style culture of control. A distinct feature of this Dutch culture of control is the increasing interconnectedness between crime and migration in both public and political discourse. As a result of the growing urge to control potential dangerous others, various stop & search powers have been implemented. Besides by their proactive nature, these powers are defined by the fact that they give a fair amount of discretion to individual police officers in deciding who to stop. In this article, while drawing on criminological, sociological and social psychological literature on stereotyping and the rise of a crime complex, the authors will argue that the structural and cultural changes fuelling the emergence of a the typical Dutch culture of control might also affect the individual choices made by police officers in such a way that it fosters ethnic profiling.

This introduction aims to position the present-day ‘liquid’ security culture in the context of cultural and political developments. Key-words in the cultural patterns in which the new ‘liquid policy’ and ‘new toughness’ is embedded are fear, precaution, late modern anomie and a social hypochondria towards everything that deviates from one’s ‘own’ culture and identity. These cultural phenomena have been translated in political terms, that are divided into neoliberal and neoconservative tendencies. The neoliberal turn in safety politics have resulted in a depoliticisation of democratic decision making, a desolidarisation of ideas on community safety and a deregulation of safety policies. Neoconservative tendencies are reflected in a resentment towards ‘the elites’, ‘the underclass’ and foreigners and a punitive populism, in which claims for stiffer sentences are continuously swept up, regardless of the effect they may have.

Immigration detention is formally not a punishment, but governments do seem to use it to deter irregular migrants from staying in the territory. This study explores whether and how practices of immigration detention in the Netherlands affect detainees’ decision-making processes regarding return and result in ‘specific deterrence’. 81 unauthorized irregular migrants were interviewed in immigration detention and their casefiles were examined. We find evidence for a limited deterrence effect: a minority of the respondents indeed wanted to return to their countries of origin in order to end their (repeated) stay in immigration detention. For some respondents the detention experience contributed to a desire to migrate from the Netherlands to a different European country. We go into the relevance of these findings for the continuing societal debate on the use of immigration detention.

The current phase in which Dutch government increasingly criminalizes the illegal residence of migrants is simultaneously characterized by decreasing numbers of illegal migrants in this country. In the process of crimmigration, some newly developed policies indirectly influence daily lives of specific groups of illegal migrants while other policies and laws more directly try to hinder illegal stay. These policies that aim to exclude and ban illegal migrants are continued even though they are increasingly criticized by academics and divergent (inter)national actors. These policies and laws can be contradictory, sometimes conflict with international treaties, and lead to unforeseen and undesirable outcomes in which human dignity is challenged.