Sinds de invoering van het Burgerlijk Wetboek in 1838 heeft men herhaaldelijk getracht de gronden voor echtscheiding te verruimen. Hoewel deze gronden uiteindelijk pas verruimd werden in 1971, werd de tot die tijd bestaande situatie, waarbij echtscheiding slechts op vier gronden mogelijk was en echtscheiding met wederzijds goedvinden verboden was, als onwenselijk beschouwd. Dit gevoelen werd nog sterker na het arrest van de Hoge Raad uit 1883, de zogenaamde 'Groote Leugen'. Teneinde een einde te maken aan deze 'Groote Leugen' en in een poging het Nederlandse echtscheidingsrecht meer in lijn te brengen met het Duitse recht, heeft de Nederlandse secretaris-generaal voor Justitie, J.J. Schrieke, tussen 1942 en 1944 twee wijzigingsvoorstellen voorgelegd aan de Duitse autoriteiten welke destijds Nederland bezet hielden. Dit artikel analyseert beide wijzigingsvoorstellen en probeert een antwoord te geven op de vraag in hoeverre deze voorstellen het resultaat waren van een mogelijke invloed van het Nationaal Socialisme.
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Since the introduction of the Civil Code in 1838 one has repeatedly tried to extend the grounds for divorce. Although the grounds for divorce were not extended before 1971, the then existing situation, with only four grounds for divorce and a prohibition of divorce with mutual consent, was considered undesirable This sentiment became even stronger after the judgment of the Dutch Supreme Court of 1883, which became known as the 'Big Lie'. In order to stop this 'Big Lie' and in an attempt to bring Dutch divorce law more in line with German divorce law, the Dutch secretary-general of Justice, J.J. Schrieke, has presented the German authorities, which then occupied the Netherlands, with two draft revisions between 1942 and 1944. This article analyses both drafts and tries to answer the question to what extent these drafts were the result of a possible influence of National Socialism. This article is a summary of a part of the most important conclusions of the dissertation of the author, titled: 'National Socialist Family Law. The influence of National Socialism on marriage and divorce law in Germany and the Netherlands' defended at Maastricht University on 8 November 2012. A commercial edition of the dissertation is forthcoming.

Preventive interventions against terrorist attacks can be justified on legal and moral grounds. The Dutch broad-based approach against terrorism also addresses radicalizations processes. It is, however, hard to justify why a government in a liberal democracy should be allowed to intervene in processes of radicalization where danger to society is not obvious. A reason to justify intervention is when a (former) radical asks for help. Theories based on the ideas of Kant and Rawls also allow for intervention if an individual’s autonomy is diminished because he is member of a sect or under the spell of a charismatic leader. Other interventions with regard to (prevention of) radicalization cannot be justified by deontological theories such as Kant’s and Rawls’. Virtue ethics or teleology would, however, allow interventions but only if they are geared towards helping the individual in their quest to the good life. This justification allows for interventions that are, for example, focused on supporting individuals to critically reflect, reason and discuss about the good life and a just society. Based on the teleological justification constraints can be derived for preventive interventions with regard to radicalization or even deradicalisation. Notice that individuals cannot be forced to join these programs because there is no legal basis.

The distance between the public and the judiciary takes two forms: a punitivity gap and an accessibility gap. This article discusses both types of gap and elaborates on the issue of whether the existence of these gaps influences confidence in the judiciary. From the literature, it appears that the public is generally of the opinion that courts sentence too leniently. However, experiments show that when citizens receive information on a specific case, they become less punitive. Information provision may also help to bridge an accessibility gap, as does actual citizen involvement in the administration of justice. The relation between the gaps discussed and confidence in the judiciary is not clear as yet. The article discusses methods generally used to assess confidence and suggests that confidence may be increased by a reduction of the two gaps.

In this contribution it has been set out that trust in the Belgian justice system cannot be taken for granted. The article contains empirical research on the reporting of newspapers on the Belgian justice system and tries to uncover a possible causal relationship between reading certain newspapers and trust in the justice system. Although it turns out that quality newspapers report on the justice system in a more negative way, readers of popular papers have less trust in the justice system. A direct link between negative reporting and reduced trust was therefore not found. Socio-economic variables and the priming effect on punitive attitudes in popular newspapers are cited as possible explanations.

Transparency of institutions like the judiciary is often assumed to increase confidence. However, a recent survey concerning opinions about the judiciary showed that in many cases one trusts the judiciary without having any special interest in the judiciary itself. It revealed that confidence in the judiciary depends on various factors like anomy, social trust, general institutional trust, personal experience and feelings about a fair chance in a hypothetical case for court. And transparency will not easily change these factors. Furthermore, providing information can both strengthen and weaken confidence due to the personal backgrounds of those receiving the information. Finally, this paper discusses whether strategic and positive information that is needed to increase confidence allows for drawing one’s own conclusions as transparency promises.

Het Hof van Justitie heeft zich in de zaak Melloni uitgesproken over de door de Spaanse constitutionele rechter opgeworpen vraag of de nationale rechter in het kader van een overleveringsprocedure aan de verzoekende staat – alvorens toestemming te verlenen de betrokken persoon over te leveren –, aanvullende eisen in de sfeer van de grondrechtenbescherming mag stellen die niet in het Kaderbesluit inzake het Europees aanhoudingsbevel staan vermeld. Deze bijdrage bespreekt de antwoorden van het Hof van Justitie op de door het Spaanse Constitutionele Hof gestelde prejudiciële vragen onder meer in het licht van de vaste rechtspraak van het Hof van Justitie over de voorrang van het recht van de Unie en duidt de betekenis van deze uitspraak met name in het licht van het bepaalde in artikel 53 van het Handvest.
HvJ EU 26 februari 2013, zaak C-399/11, S. Melloni/Ministerio Fiscal, n.n.g.
Kaderbesluit van 13 juni 2002 betreffende het Europees aanhoudingsbevel en de procedures van overlevering tussen de lidstaten (2002/584/JBZ) (verder: Kaderbesluit 2002/584) zoals gewijzigd bij Kaderbesluit 2009/299/JBZ.
Kaderbesluit 2009/299/JBZ van de Raad van 26 februari 2009 tot wijziging van Kaderbesluit 2002/584, Kaderbesluit 2005/214/JBZ, Kaderbesluit 2006/783, Kaderbesluit 2008/909/JBZ en Kaderbesluit 2008/947/JBZ en tot versterking van de procedurele rechten van personen, tot bevordering van de toepassing van het beginsel van wederzijdse erkenning op beslissingen gegeven ten aanzien van personen die niet verschenen zijn tijdens het proces, Pb. EU 2009, L 81/24.

Since the mid-1980s American recipes for the fight against crime and nuisance are very popular amongst Dutch policymakers. The question posed in this article is why they rather look at the United States than at European countries far more comparable to the Netherlands. The authors answers this question by pointing at the popularity of neo-liberal recipes in general, an emotional historical bond marked by the time that New York was still called New Amsterdam and the liberation from Nazism in 1945, the (sometimes reluctant) acceptance of the US’ role as ‘the world’s policeman’ and a (mostly unspoken) belief that ‘bigger is better’. Next, the author draws some lessons from research on ‘how policy travels’: 1) crime policies are always in much wider social policies and idea(l)s; 2) if something ‘works’ in country A it doesn’t mean it also ‘works’ in country B; 3) policies are always adopted to national circumstances; 4) policymakers are particularly fond of simple messages and dislike nuances and criticism; 5) you can also look at the US in order to find out where ‘we’ don’t want to go; and 6) you most of all learn more about yourself if you look at other countries. The author concludes with a plea for critical cosmopolitanism and a decolonisation of criminology from national biases.

This essay describes the most important recent events in the field of American drugs legislation covering the liberalization of cannabis policies in several states as well as the reduction of penalties for the possession of crack at the federal level. These developments are situated in a broader context of a complicated and big country with plenty of room for extreme moral views and a very punitive justice policy that targets Blacks and Latino’s much more than the white middle class. The disproportionate impact of the punitive drugs legislation is an important driving force behind the trend towards liberalization, next to the high costs of maintaining an overcrowded prison system.

This article introduces and evaluates three different specialty court programs that are being enacted in a large Texas county to locally fight the growing tide of unsustainably high incarceration rates that is sweeping the United States. The study provides a brief description of the general dilemma of the American criminal justice system that, as a result of the widespread fear of crime and a mainstream news arena that favors grossly simplistic sound-byte-compatible get-tough policies, has become so immensely punitive and overburdening on public budgets that it is de facto no longer sustainable and in desperate need of immediate change. Faced with a situation of political stalemate on state and federal levels, county judges in Texas and other states are taking it upon themselves to bring about change in their local jurisdictions. Through newly designed specialty courts models, they seek to divert special-needs offenders away from the default incarceration track. The article evaluates the overall effectiveness of these new sentencing alternatives and identifies specific areas that need further improvement.

This article focuses on the question whether Dutch policy makers and researchers ought to look more often to Scandinavia for inspiration and less to the West (UK and USA). Scandinavian countries are also influenced by Anglo-American ideas about crime and justice, but at the same time the number of incarcerated persons has not changed dramatically while recidivism rates are low. Dutch policy makers and researcher do sometimes look at initiatives and practices in Scandinavian countries, most often Sweden. Dutch society shares many similarities with the Scandinavian welfare states and therefore it should be natural – according to the author – to benefit more often from Scandinavian experiences. Some suggestions are discussed in the article.

A survey of the literature suggested that low participation rates in prison-based rehabilitation programs in The Netherlands can be explained by a lack of treatment readiness amongst rehabilitation candidates and participants. The current contribution aims to examine treatment readiness amongst detainees that have been assigned a candidate for a prison-based rehabilitation program in the Netherlands. To address these aims, data were used from the fourth wave of a research project studying the effects of imprisonment on the life of detainees in the Netherlands. Results showed that about eighty percent of treatment candidates were not treatment ready. This lack of treatment readiness amongst potential participants will no doubt influence both treatment engagement numbers, which studies have shown to be low, and quite possible treatment effectiveness. Results imply that practitioners should be aware of the absence of treatment readiness amongst a large part of their clients. Assessment and (if necessary) interventions to increase treatment readiness amongst candidates and participants seems of the utmost importance.

The aim of the current study is to provide insight in the support for victim rights among Dutch citizens. Although it is generally assumed that the Dutch public supports these rights, empirical research into this topic appears to be scarce. The opinion with regard to four victim rights was established in two ways. Firstly, respondents were asked about their attitudes and, secondly, about their willingness to pay extra taxes for those rights. Respondents’ attitudes concerning the victim rights in this study appear to be positive; their willingness to pay, however, is low. Findings indicate the importance of combining conventional attitude questions with alternative methods (such as questions about willingness to pay) when studying public preferences and opinions.

Het Liefdehuis-arrest uit 1913 was het eerste arrest waarin het medisch beroepsgeheim centraal stond. De Hoge Raad relativeert daarin drastisch de betekenis van de artseneed/-belofte voor het beroepsgeheim en het verschoningsrecht. Grondslag en oogmerk van het beroepsgeheim worden niet op regelgeving gebaseerd maar op de eigen aard van de verhouding patiënt-arts. In dit artikel schetst de auteur kort de achtergronden van het arrest. Hij gaat in op het belang van de uitspraak en geeft een korte analyse van de sterke en zwakke kanten.

National governments have adopted a variety of approaches to the protection of whistleblowers. This article refers to examples in Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and ongoing work in Ireland, the Netherlands and Serbia. It is not always clear what would count as success, but none of the existing laws appears to have wholly achieved its aims. The Council of Europe aims to establish some common ground in Europe by drafting a Recommendation which will establish principles on which Member States should draft laws and establish systems. This article considers the work done so far on the draft Recommendation, discusses some of the most important and problematic aspects, and suggests improvements.

In 5 Grams: Crack Cocaine, Rap Music, and the War on Drugs Dimitri Bogazianos, an assistant professor at the departement Criminal Justice of California State University, discusses the cultural links between the American ‘war on drugs’ and the creative contributions of those directly affected by its destructive effects. At the centre of his analysis is the parallel between what the author calls ‘the crack game’ and ‘the rap game’. On the one hand Bogazianos examines the profound symbolic consequences of America’s reliance on the paradoxical punishment structure of crack; on the other hand the author focuses on the multiple ways crack appeared as a symbolical reference in the lyrics of rap artists.

Various disciplines have a longstanding tradition of studying musical genres and the various functions of music, but few criminologists focus on music in their scientific work. This article discusses various relationships between music, crime and culture. We discuss the hypothesis of ‘criminogenic’ music genres, and countless examples of criminalisation of music. We point at the stilistic importance of music genres for subcultures and social movements, and we raise ethical aspects: music can also be used as an instrument of (symbolic) violence, as a punishment or even as torture. Finally, we discuss other functional uses of music: as a vehicle for human emotions, for therapeutic purposes, to influence the behavior of employees and consumers, to enhance feelings of public safety, and to prevent crime and nuisance.