Within the field of criminology, marriage and labour are important determinants for the decline in criminal behavior. However, these factors are seldom researched in the context of historical criminology. By conducting research into crimes against property in Rotterdam, those brought to the Rotterdam correctional court in the 1812-1820 period, this paper attempts to shed light on the topic. Our findings show that a majority of the delinquents in question were employed, while a minority of those female delinquents were married, yet also in gainful employment in most cases. Male adolescents, who had just entered the labour market, were the largest group of male delinquents. The female population of delinquents consisted mostly of women who were close to marriageable age. Thus, it is suggested that labour and marriage supplied insufficient economical stability to inhibit criminal behavior during the 1812-1820 period.

This paper looks at how Dutch newspapers dealt with mental disorders and gender in their crime reports in 1930. The Psychopath Acts, which allowed special restriction orders (‘TBR’) to be imposed on mentally disturbed delinquents who were a danger to society, had just come into effect then. The newspapers did not present such TBR criminals as dangerous or mentally disturbed. Instead, the papers used ‘madness’ to explain apparently motiveless crimes such as killing one’s own children. Female perpetrators were no more likely to be labelled mentally ill than male perpetrators.

Throughout history people have committed theft, fraud and murder. However, the frequency and severity of crimes are not static, but varies across time and space. The ways in which people respond to crime also change over time: penalties such as banishment, corporal punishment and capital punishment were frequently imposed in early modern Europe, but do not exist here anymore. Our thinking about crime and crime control changed over time as well. In addition to so-called hard crimes such as theft and homicide, various kinds of conduct were – in some times and periods – labeled as criminal (adultery, fornication and blasphemy). In crime control, state formation resulted in the emergence and expansion and professionalization of police forces and judicial systems, which development was accompanied by increasing interactions and interplays between supranational governments, private crime fighters, and informal forms of social control. Criminologists study fluid phenomena which vary across time and space. This makes exchange of knowledge and research cooperation between historians and criminologists particularly fruitful, or as Paul Knepper put it: ‘From what has been done so far, one thing is clear enough: the most interesting criminology arises at the point that history and criminology meet’ (Knepper, 2013, 2081).

This contribution focuses on the manner in which between 1880 and 1940 private actors in the port of Antwerp, whether or not in cooperation with the public authorities, interpreted crime and crime control in terms of risk management, loss prevention and situational crime prevention through a strict economic approach, as opposed to the then dominant institutionalized and criminological discourse. Whereas crime control by the major criminal justice institutions put an emphasis on the biological, psychological and sociological characteristics of the offender, measures taken by maritime, industrial and commercial organizations were aimed exclusively at manipulating the temporal and spatial dimensions of the opportunity structures in which criminal activities, which posed a threat to the economic profitability, could develop.

This article studies the position of young victims in restorative justice and mediation. First we study the literature, which shows that although young victims may have specific needs, their position within restorative justice remains underexposed. Therefore, we have set up a small explorative study in the beginning of 2015. Through nine interviews with young victims who have gone through a mediation process in Flanders, we sought to answer three central questions. The article discusses whether these victims were satisfied with the mediation process, whether they could have a say in the process and what the importance was of having support persons throughout the mediation process.
We found that the participation of the parents does influence the mediation process, since the parents are the main support persons for the young victim. Other support people are seldom present in the process, although some victims wanted the school or a friend to participate. Most of the young victims found they had a say in the process, but the presence of the parents could be an impediment in that regard. Young victims interviewed were generally satisfied with the mediator and mediation process, but not always with the outcome of the mediation. Ensuring that these young victims really get a say in the process proved to be a point of attention for practice.

Child homicide is a phenomenon that not infrequently leads to shock and societal unrest. However, the precise nature and scope of child homicide in the Netherlands remains unknown. This article attempts to fill the gap in our current knowledge by reporting descriptive research on child homicide in the Netherlands in the period 2009-2014. Further, this article aims to assess if media attention regarding child homicide brings about a so-called copycat-effect. By means of descriptive statistics, case, victim and perpetrator characteristics of 74 cases of filicide are assessed.

Protected living in some sort of gated community is popular. However Dutch protected living differs from, for instance, the living in American gated communities, the development tends to social discussions whether it is undesirable or not. Safety seems in the Netherlands not the first reason for protected living. Here, domestic and aesthetic reasons are much more important.

This article considers the effect of austerity-induced public spending cuts on the English civil justice system. In doing so it initially examines two fundamental changes engendered by the effect austerity has had on civil court fees and legal aid: first, a challenge to the traditional commitment in English procedure to adversarial process, and a concomitant increase in inquisitorial or investigative processes; and secondly, the growth in use of unqualified individuals to act as advocates in court for individual litigants who are unable to afford legal representation. It then turns to consider what, if any, effect austerity has had on simplified processes available in English civil procedure.

Canada is in the midst of an access to justice crisis. The rising costs and complexity of legal services in Canada have surpassed the need for these services. This article briefly explores some obstacles to civil justice as well as some of the court-based programmes and initiatives in place across Canada to address this growing access to justice gap. In particular, this article explains the Canadian civil justice system and canvasses the procedures and programmes in place to make the justice system more efficient and improve access to justice in small and simple matters. Although this article does look briefly at the impact of the global financial crisis on access to justice efforts in Canada, we do not provide empirical data of our own on this point. Further, we conclude that there is not enough existing data to draw correlations between austerity measures in response to the global crisis and the challenges facing Canadian civil justice. More evidence-based research would be helpful to understand current access to justice challenges and to make decisions on how best to move forward with meaningful innovation and policy reform. However, there is reason for optimism in Canada: innovative ideas and a national action plan provide reason to believe that the country can simplify, expedite, and increase access to civil justice in meaningful ways over the coming years.

This contribution, which is based on the Dutch legal system, deals with the responsibilities of the State and legal professions in ensuring access to justice. The responsibilities of the four main players involved in bringing justice to the citizen are discussed: the legislator, the executive, the judiciary, and the legal profession. Responsibilities for access to justice do not only stem from the law, they do also evolve from societal problems and discussions. The contribution deals with both. Several actors share some of the responsibilities. One can think of responsibilities for information, for financing, and for being aware of vulnerabilities and other obstacles. What are the legal responsibilities and what other responsibilities are felt by the actors involved and how do they deal with them? And as a result: do they contribute to access to justice, do they form an obstacle, or both?

The right to adequate housing has since long been established in international and European human rights law and has been (constitutionally) incorporated into many domestic legal systems. This contribution focuses on the extent to which this fundamental right influences rental law and the horizontal relationship between tenant and landlord and how it contributes to the tenant’s access to justice. The right to housing certainly accounts for tenant’s rights, but since international and European human rights law evidently centres around state obligations, any possible impact on the position of tenants remains indirect. This is of course different on the national plane. In Belgium, the constitutional right to housing has been implemented through regional Housing Codes, complementing private law measures and creating additional protection to tenants. Nonetheless, many challenges still remain in increasing access to justice for tenants, both top-down and bottom-up: lack of knowledge and complexity of law, imbalance in power and dependency, discrimination, etc.

De Richtlijn inzake schadevorderingen beoogt de ‘civielrechtelijke handhaving’ van het mededinginsgrecht te bevorderen door schadevergoedingsacties te stimuleren. De schade die door (met name) een kartel is veroorzaakt, dient geheel te worden vergoed. Economisch gezien betekent dit een extra financiële belasting bovenop de bestuursrechtelijke boete. Het lijkt dan aannemelijk dat de afschrikwekkende werking op kartelgedrag wordt vergroot. Of dat zo is, hangt af van diverse factoren, zoals de boete, pakkans, mogelijkheid tot schikken en de kans op het feitelijk verkrijgen van een schadevergoeding.

Immigrants are overrepresented in Dutch crime rates and in forensic psychiatric care. The current research explored the relation between delinquency, psychiatric problems and ethnicity. General characteristics, judicial history and history of mental health care of male detainees which reside in a penitentiary psychiatric centre, have been investigated and the relation of these factors with ethnicity is examined. Results show that in particular second-generation non-western immigrants are highly represented. It seems that it had been more difficult for them to get adequate treatment.

In this article several perspectives on studying taboos within social sciences are described. Originally, taboo, a concept that was already used within Polynesian societies early 1800, referred to food that was not allowed to eat. Anthropologists analyzed taboos especially in a functionalistic manner, as contributing to the maintenance of existing power balances within societies. These and other studies on taboos all illustrate the fact that taboos are very much a social construction and are very much time and place dependent. In contemporary western societies taboos are associated with ‘open secrets’ and ‘silencing’. Within criminology certain topics are considered taboo as a research object (e.g. explaining crime through ethnic, cultural or religious characteristics), while others claim that there are no criminological research taboos left.

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.

A second empirical revolution in law is in full swing: legal big data have made their entrance and will play an increasingly important role in the legal field. Legal big data, for example, increase the accessibility and transparency of files. They make it easier for legislators to find out how society views proposed legislation. Using big data, all jurisprudence can be processed very easily and judicial decisions can be predicted with a high degree of certainty. The contribution concludes with a number of legal and ethical issues and methodological challenges in relation to legal big data, such as ownership, privacy and representativeness.

This article stems from a practice-oriented research on restorative justice and perceptions of conflict in a poor neighbourhood in Brussels: the Anneessens district. The first part of the article focuses on the conceptual shift from a crime-oriented towards a conflict-oriented restorative justice, including the search for a user-friendly working definition of ‘conflict’. The classical restorative justice story receives a facelift in order to address metropolitan challenges. The second part analyses 41 walking interviews of residents, focusing on conflict themes and zones. The third part cautiously checks the working definition in the frame of the analysed data. A provisional conclusion entails that the notion of crime and its related meanings should not be discarded too quickly.