This article examines the importance of the social evidence base in relation to the development of the law. It argues that there is a need for those lawyers who play a part in law reform (legislators and those involved in the law reform process) and for those who play a part in formulating policy-based common law rules (judges and practitioners) to know more about how facts are established in the social sciences. It argues that lawyers need sufficient knowledge and skills in order to be able to critically assess the facts and evidence base when examining new legislation and also when preparing, arguing and determining the outcomes of legal disputes. For this reason the article argues that lawyers need enhanced training in empirical methodologies in order to function effectively in modern legal contexts.

How can we teach critical legal education? The article tackles this key question by focusing on the role of methodology in legal education and research. I argue that critical legal education requires marketing methodology as a ‘skill’, thereby freeing it from what students and researchers in Law often view as the negative connotations of ‘theory’. This skill requires exploring ‘alternative methodologies’ – those critical perspectives that depart from legal positivism and which Law traditionally regards as ‘peripheral’. As an example, the article explores the Foucauldian concept of governmentality as a useful methodological tool. The article also discusses the difference between theory, methodology and method, and reviews current academic contributions on law and method(ology). Ultimately, it suggests a need for a ‘revolt of conduct’ in legal education. Perhaps then we might hope for students that are not docile and disengaged (despite being successful lawyers) but, rather, able to nurture an attitude that allows for ‘thinking’ (law) critically.

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.

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.

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.

In policy development and academic research on urban problems such as poverty, disorder and crime, the United States has served as a model country for the Netherlands for years. This article analyses two Dutch policies in the field of neighbourhood safety that are strongly influenced by American policy. It specifically focuses on the efficacy and applicability of social interventions, i.e. approaches that appeal to residents’ active involvement in the improvement of public safety and quality of life: resident representation comities (I) and neighbourhood watch schemes (II). Available research into the two policy cases illustrates that the ‘hard’ science from the United States can often be complemented with more qualitative information from the Netherlands. American research can thus be used to support Dutch policy designs, provided that knowledge is fine-tuned and contextualised.

This article describes the long decline of crime rates in New York, as analysed by Franklin Zimring in his book The city that became safe (2012). The author discusses and analyses the processes involved in ‘lesson drawing’ and the ‘policy transfer’ from New York to the Netherlands. Issues that are further addressed include the opportunities of prevention and the enforcement of ‘hot crimes’.

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 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.

Identity fraud is a rapidly growing problem, as shown by recent volume estimates from victim surveys. Little is known however about the amount of financial damage among victims of this crime, especially in the Dutch context. This article studies victims of unauthorized cash withdrawal from their bank account, which is one of the most common forms of identity fraud. For this, we use data on 180 victims from the representative LISS panel. The results show that the financial implications of this type of crime experience vary widely between victims. While many victims are disadvantaged for only a small amount of money (for almost 40 per cent is about less than 50 euros ), a quarter of this group suffers from substantial money loss of more than 500 euros. Nevertheless, the vast majority (85 per cent) are completely reimbursed by their banks. Eventually, only in rare cases victims suffer significant permanent money loss. Remarkably, the low educated are significantly less often reimbursed by their banks.

This special issue introduces the topic of cybercrime to Dutch criminology. First, it raises the major substantive issues that computer technology involves for criminology, in terms of crime volume, people involved in crime, and the ways that crimes are committed. Also, it deals with research literature on cybercrime on various topics, such as survey methodology, crime prevention and Internet applications open to justice professionals in the fight against crime. Overall, the article concludes that much research remains to be done in this relatively new field.

When the Allied victory over the Axis powers is becoming certain, American officials start making plans for the occupation of Germany. In the aftermath of the invasion in 1944, some of these plans are brought to the attention of the Secretary of the Treasury in Roosevelt’s war cabinet, Henry Morgenthau. These plans infuriate him, because he considers them too lenient on Germany, which in his opinion should be reduced to an agrarian economy after its Nazi leadership has been summarily executed. The President at first agrees with this line of action as do most of the members of his cabinet. The only one opposing these ideas is the Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, suggesting economic reconstruction and an international tribunal instead. His opposition seems in vain, when Roosevelt and Churchill publicly agree to this course of action towards Germany during a meeting in Quebec. But the ‘Morgenthau plan’ unravels when it is leaked to the press and it causes an uproar. Roosevelt fears for his re-election chances and hastily retreats. But he makes no decision on the issue and Stimson has to wait for his opportunity. It comes in the person of a new President: Harry Truman. He agrees to Stimson’s proposal for an international tribunal and this brings the United States on board of an allied majority for what is later to become the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Could one imagine that up until the mid-1940s international treaties had been ratified on postal services, copyright protection, and whale hunting, but not on genocide? It was only after the Second World War that the deliberate and systematic destruction of groups was recognised as an international crime. There had not even been a name for this practice, which has existed since the beginning of humanity. The 1948 Genocide Convention, the first human rights treaty adopted by the United Nations, was a milestone in the international protection of human rights, although several tragedies have shown that mere law is not sufficient to relegate genocide to the scrapheap of history. The initiator of the Convention was not a very well-known man. This article is about the struggle of Raphael Lemkin, who had, with unflagging zeal, devoted his life to the elimination of genocide.

Over the past 25 years, international organizations, NGOs and (mostly Western) states have spent considerable energy and resources on strengthening and reforming legal systems in developing countries. The results of these efforts have generally been disappointing, despite occasional successes. Among donors, one of most popular explanations of this failure in recent years is that rule of law promotion has wrongly focused almost exclusively on strengthening the formal legal system. Donors have therefore decided to 'engage' with informal justice systems. The turn to legal plu‍ra‍lism is to be welcomed for various reasons. But it is also surprising and worrisome. It is surprising because legal pluralism in developing countries was a fact of life before rule of law promotion began. What made donors pursuing legal reform blind to this reality for so long? It is worrisome because it is not self-evident that the factors which have contributed to such cognitive blindness have disappeared overnight. Are donors really ready to refocus their efforts on legal pluralism and 'engage' with informal justice systems? This paper, which is based on a review of the literature on donor engamenet with legal pluralism in so-called conflict affected and fragile states, is about these questions. It argues that 7 factors have been responsible for donor blindness regarding legal pluralism. It questions whether these factors have been addressed.

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.

In this article on the social production of the book Outsiders, I will situate its production in the daily practice of the social worlds in which Becker was involved. Therefore I focus on the relations, interactions and situations which were relevant for the form, content and success of Outsiders. For data, I use fragments from my email communication with Howard Becker, the collected interviews and other publications which show that Becker seeks to demystify Outsiders. My main contribution is that I use Becker’s own words to demystify the ethnographic practice of Outsiders and describe its mundane backstage reality, which is described by Fine as ‘the underside’ of ethnography (1993).

The social history of jazz music in America since 1880 has been described as a movement out of the inauspicious background of night clubs and brothels in the urban underworld. In 1980 Ronald L. Morris has published a book, Wait until dark, fostering a contrary view (that should inspire criminology). Morris claimed that until 1940 the ‘mob’ had promoted jazz music as gangsters hired black musicians without concern for the law and the conventions of racial segregation. There is some evidence that even during the 1950s the jazz scene of New York City and Las Vegas had also been partly organized by the mafia.

The global financial crisis gives reason to revisit the debate on directors’ duties in corporate law, mainly with regard to the context of banks. This article explores the need, rationale and the potential for the introduction of context-specific directors’ duties and enforcement mechanisms in the banking sector in the Netherlands from a comparative perspective.
Chiefly, two legal strategies can be derived from the post-crisis developments and calls for legal reforms for the need and rationale to sharpen directors’ duties in the context of the banking sector in order to meet societal demands. The two strategies consist in shifting the scope of directors’ duties (i) towards clients’ interests and (ii) towards the public interest.
Subsequently, this article explores the potential for context-specific directors’ duties and accompanying enforcement mechanisms. Firstly, it is argued that the current legal framework allows for the judicial development -specific approach. Secondly, such context-specific directors’ duties should be enforced through public-enforcement mechanisms to enhance the accountability of bank directors towards the public interest but currently there are too much barriers for implementation in practice.
In conclusion, this article argues that there is indeed a need, rationale and potential for context-specific directors’ duties; yet there are several major obstacles for the implementation of accompanying public-enforcement mechanisms. As a result, the introduction of context-specific directors’ duties in the banking sector may as yet entail nothing more than wishful thinking because it will merely end in toothless ambitions if the lack of accompanying enforcement mechanisms remains intact.