Criminologists have devoted surprisingly little attention to criminal investigation issues. This is understandable given the difficulties faced when performing empirical research into this subject. Getting access to confidential data from police and security services and disclosing such findings in scientific publications remains a challenge.
However, knowledge about investigative practices and their effects is essential for current debates about the legitimacy of new investigative methods and related privacy violations. This special issue contains contributions from authors who were able to connect research and science with criminal investigation practices. The contributions concern relevant topics, such as interrogation methods, social network analysis in criminal investigations, investigation of terrorist activities, sexual offenses, and private investigations. With these contributions, this special issue illustrates how empirical research into criminal investigation practices can be executed, and what new insights this provides.

Social network analysis (SNA) has taken its place in the field of criminology, although among Dutch criminologists the emphasis remains on conceptual contributions. Meanwhile, the world of criminal investigation and intelligence has witnessed the development of a blossoming SNA-practice. The emergence of big data makes SNA an indispensable tool to exploit the oceans of data in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, when it comes to employing SNA, academia and the investigations and intelligence domains remain separated. While Dutch analysts adopt scientific ideas and concepts, they rarely contribute to the body of literature; confidential SNA reports remain inaccessible. Shedding light on over forty SNA related internal police studies, this article bridges the gap between Dutch academic criminologists and ‘pracademics’ in law enforcement.

This article describes a qualitative inquiry into Dutch people going to Syria for participating in Jihad. The inquiry compares theoretical findings with empirical facts, based on a content analysis and a document analysis, completed with ten depth-interviews. The results show that a combination of scientific findings on radicalisation and foreign fighters explains the jihad movement to Syria partly. The results also show that some factors, which have not recently be examined scientificly, are crucial for the character and extent of the movement towards Jihad.

This article critically evaluates the recent developments in Dutch policy formation regarding Roma minorities from the perspective of the increased attention paid to their position at European level. First, the author discusses the so-called ‘Europeanization of Roma representation’, that is the post-1989 representation of the Roma as a European minority and the simultaneous large-scale, Europe-wide devising of development, inclusion, and empowerment programs meant for them. Thereafter, the author argues that some of the risks of the Roma’s Europeanization – such as the isolation and culturalization of policy formation and the diminishing of democratic accountability – have also and ambiguously affected Dutch policies meant for Roma, Sinti and caravan dwellers. By means of a brief analysis of recent policy developments, the author demonstrates that the Dutch shift towards a policy that, at least in name, encourages social participation, has actually tended to result into a one-sided focus on the Roma as a ‘problem group’ and ‘security threat’.

For the occasion of the 40 ^th anniversary of the Netherlands’ Society of Criminology the author has analysed the Society’s archive and related the development of this professional organisation to the development of Dutch criminology in the period between 1974 and 2014. He distinguishes five turning points in this respect: between 1965 and 1974 we witnessed the emancipation of criminology as an autonomous discipline; the period 1978-1985 is characterised by a downfall of criminology at the universities; between 1992 and 1995 a period of restoration started, that is characterised by a focus on criminology’s policy-relevance; from 1999 to 2010 we can witness a recovery, in which academic criminology raised like a phoenix from its ashes; and from that time on we see the discipline broadening up again, in which the dominance of positivist research agendas is countered by a cultural criminology and a more critical attitude towards the production-oriented research policy in general. The bottom line is that the Society followed these trends imperceptibly: it was active when criminology did well and was ‘in rest’ when it did not. The article concludes with the question whether the Society has an active role to play in the public debate about the role of science and crime and punishment.

Using officially registered conviction history data, this study examines the criminal careers of 601 members of Dutch outlaw motorcycle gangs, identified as such by the Dutch police. We find that the average 1% er in our sample is a 44-year-old, Dutch-born male. The large majority of these 1% ers have been convicted for a crime at least once. One in four convicted 1% ers can be classified as a chronic offender accumulating over ten convictions from age 12 until 2013. The large majority of 1% ers experiences an adult onset of their officially registered criminal career, with almost half acquiring their first conviction when they are aged 30 or older, challenging the generality of criminology's accepted conclusions about criminal career development.

According to the text of the law and the meaning of the (international and) Dutch legislator, someone can also commit the crime of money laundering when the illegal proceeds originate from a crime he committed himself. The acquisition or possession of property that was derived from criminal activity is also considered as money laundering regardless whose criminal activity it was. The Dutch Supreme Court made an exception for situations in which the defendant has done nothing to conceal or disguise the criminal background of the property. This means that, for instance, when a drug dealer has hidden his ‘dirty money’ in or around his house, it cannot be qualified as money laundering. This poses problems for investigative authorities. In this article, the possibility of regarding the act of hiding and keeping hidden money as an attempt to launder money, based on the presumption that every act involving the hidden or kept money will result in money laundering, is researched.

This article gives a report of an empirical study on business crime among small and medium sized enterprises (< 250 employees). The researchers examined 37 cases of business crime by interviewing the entrepreneurs. They were asked how the offence occurred, about their personal stake and their reflections on the interests that were impaired. Although the concept of business crime covers a huge amount of unlawful actions committed with various intentions, in the end there are three main driving forces: control, opportunity and motivation. Control refers to the entrepreneurs’ professionalism and ability to bring business processes – that can be rather complex – in line with regulations. Opportunity refers to the economic interest c.q. the (opportunity) costs of compliance. Motivation refers to the entrepreneurs’ perception of responsibility toward direct stakeholders and social values.

Both white-collar research and law enforcement tend to focus on the circumstances surrounding the white-collar offence and pay less attention to the background of the offender. Research shows that white-collar offenders are a heterogeneous group and that different development pathways and offender profiles can be identified. For many offenders the offence appears to be an isolated occurrence in norm conform lives, for others patterns in offending can be distinguished. For some this is a divers and long criminal career, others display a mix of norm conform and deviant behaviour. After briefly exploring if an underlying tendency for deviant and risk full behaviour may characterise white-collar offenders and how this may interact with opportunities for white-collar crime, the significance of these findings for law enforcement is discussed.

In the Netherlands new criminal law measures will be introduced to prevent and combat bankruptcy fraud. In this article the author argues that the emphasis on criminal law measures is not sufficient to effectively tackle the phenomenon of bankruptcy fraud because prosecution and punishment always occur after the damage is done. What is needed is an integrated approach realising preventive measures, such as tools to detect fraud at an early stage. Fraud is, after all, characterised by typical behaviour that throws up digital red flags. After detecting those red flags subsequent action can be taken to stop the fraud. Also modernising the Trade Register would contribute considerably to the protection of creditors.

The central thesis of this article is that the structure of the present financial system, its culture, and its collective practices and policies are fundamentally criminal and criminogenic. The harms emanating from this financial system are exponentially greater than those emanating from the disadvantaged environments that generate a disproportionate percentage of conventional crime. Accordingly, on various levels, there is much at stake in more fully and directly recognizing and identifying many core policies and practices of the financial system for what they are: crimes on a very large scale.

Vagabonds, mainly relating to beggars and vagrants, have occupied the Western European social and criminal landscape by the ages. In this contribution some long term patterns – from the Middle Ages onwards – are investigated. The central questions are a) What is the place vagabonds occupied in society? and b) How was dealt with them in the past centuries? In order to answer these questions the perception of and the distinction between true and false beggars and vagrants are included. In addition to penal and criminological sources also those from the visual arts (history) are applied. Answering these questions shows a process of increasing institutionalization seeing a pattern of social exclusion to institutional confinement. An important role in the institutionalization is reserved for the interference of criminal law.

Food fraud can be seen as a form of counterfeit, which has increased globally because of technological developments. The authors, both working for the European Union police agency Europol, give several examples of the involvement of organized crime groups in food fraud. They describe the cooperation between Europol in its coordinating role with various national police forces in tracing food crime and arresting the perpetrators. Also the involvement of the European Union agencies Eurojust and Frontex in special operations like OPSON to unmask illegal trade in counterfeit foodstuff are described.