Quality of organization and quality management are different concepts. The CEPEJ report on efficiency and quality of justice refers to a state of affairs. Quality management is a set of planned, reactive and proactive actions to enhance organisation development in order to improve the functioning of an organisation. Based on case studies on quality management in several COE member states, a distinction is suggested between various levels of involvement of a ministry of justice or a council for the judiciary in quality management in the courts and/or the court administration. A restricted comparative analyses suggests that cooperation between courts and a ministry of justice is based on mutual trust, where the ministry of justice does hardly interfere. In most countries, however, interactions between the court organisations and the ministry of justice to enhance quality management are coordinated at the central level.

In their contribution ‘Employment and ICMS’, Rob Jagtenberg and Annie de Roo discuss the yields that an integrated conflict management system may bring to individual workers, to the company or organisation, and to society as a whole. Few organisations have adopted ICMS as yet. Therefore, the authors analyse the resistance against introduction of ICMS in some detail, especially resistance on the part of management, which likely will be decisive.Recent developments in the world economy and in politics however, may change the leverage in favour of introducing ICMS still, in the years to come.

Incorporated groups include businesses, universities, churches and the like. Organized to act as single centers of agency, they also routinely satisfy the three conditions that make an agent fit to be held responsible: they face significant choices, can recognize the relative value of different options, and are able to choose in sensitivity to such values. But is it redundant to hold a corporate agent responsible for something, when certain members are also held responsible for the individual parts they play? No it is not, for it is often possible for a corporate entity to be fully fit to be held responsible, when this is not true of the individual members; they may be able to make excuses that are not available at the corporate level. Does the case made for corporate responsibility extend to unincorporated collectivities like nations or religions? Not strictly but it does explain why it may be sensible to treat those collectivities as if they had corporate responsibility in certain domains.

Fifty years ago Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, the Dutch Journal for Criminology, appeared for the first time. It has now developed into a peer reviewed journal with quantitative and qualitative research of high quality. Youth and life course criminology, research into organised and organisational crime, criminographical research, and research into violence are strongly represented nowadays. Changes in the journal reflect more general developments in criminology in the Netherlands and Belgium. In the last 10-15 years the discipline has become more internationally oriented and professional, and scientific backgrounds of criminologists have become more diverse.

In this contribution the focus is on whether mediation, as it is practiced today, can be regarded as a profession and if so, whether it belongs to the ‘new’ or ‘old’ professions. In an attempt to answer this question the structure of the body of knowledge and the predictability of the outcomes of the application of that body of knowledge are discussed.