To what extent does liberal democracy still manage to realize the principle of expressive liberty? This article argues that, just as by the ethically monistic character of certain theoretizations of Confucian democracy, expressive liberty is threatened by a Western ‘civic totalism’ that insists that ‘politics enjoys general authority over subordinate activities and institutions because it aims at the highest and most comprehensive good for human beings’ (Galston). The ideal of liberal democracy will remain fundamentally flawed, as long as the sovereignty of the people on which its political legitimacy is more and more exclusively based hinders instead of advances a true sort of value pluralism.

In 2011 we executed a quantitative and qualitative research on the extent of discrimination, polarisation and radicalisation in a region in the Netherlands. The results are representative for The Netherlands. The research shows that there is breeding ground for radicalization, in particular Muslim youths. The outcome also provides insights in relevant avenues for public policy. Over the past years, several inventories have been made of public policy that aims to counter radicalisation. Most of the interventions listed do not conjure with the interventions we propose on the basis of our research, such as awareness raising for practitioners, prevention of and education about discrimination, focus on neighbourhood grievances and nuisances caused by specific ethnic groups and the negative tone of the public debate regarding Islam and the multicultural society. If measures to counter radicalization are even evaluated, they tend to focus on the process and effectiveness of the intervention, but they do not answer the question if that is actually also the right intervention. We therefore propose not only to focus on doing things right, but also to ask the question if we are doing the right things. We suggest not only measuring effectiveness, but also measuring impact.

In this article a longitudinal effect study is described of resilience training Diamant. The training focuses in particular on adolescents with a dual identity who do not have work, are not enrolled in an education, feel unfairly treated (relatively deprived), have low self-esteem, and are at risk of social isolation. The training can be considered as a method to prevent development of criminal behaviour and possibly radicalisation. Certified trainers work with small groups of 10 to 15 adolescents to increase their resilience and help them finding their place in society. The present research focused on the following questions: (1) Does this training have a positive effect on self-esteem among the participants? (2) Does social isolation decrease as a consequence of the training? (3) Does the training reduce feelings of relative deprivation and help participants better deal with conflicts? Participants were interviewed before and halfway the training and directly after completing the training. A follow-up measurement three months after the end of the training examined effects on the longer term. In total 44 semi-structured interviews were held. Interviews were written out and coded using a two-step procedure: In the first step two researchers independently coded each interview. Second, when necessary, changes in the coding scheme were made. Then each interview was coded separately by the two researchers and disagreements were discussed until full agreement was reached. The results show that Diamant has a positive effect on self-esteem of participants. Also, participants overall showed an increase in connectedness to society. Third, Diamant reduced feelings of relative deprivation and participants indicated they could better deal with conflicts. Based on these results it is concluded that Diamant is effective in regard to its goals which were evaluated in this study. Limitations of the research and possibilities for future studies are discussed.

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.

It is important for the Dutch judiciary to monitor how society, professional partners and litigants perceive the administration of justice. Different polls and studies provide this information. However, up until 2012 little was known about the way top-level (public and private) decision makers and opinion leaders view the functioning of the courts. This prompted the Council for the Judiciary to commission a study on the external reputation of the administration of justice. The results of this study show that there is neither reason for serious concern nor reason for complacency. Criticism was voiced with regard to the operational capacity of the courts, most notably the case processing time and the lack of technical innovation. Also, it was concluded that the judiciary should take a more proactive stance concerning external communication.A couple of months after the study on the external reputation of the courts was completed, some justices of the Court of Appeal Leeuwarden conceived the so-called ‘Manifest’. Among other things, they criticized the caseload, which in their view threatens the independence of judges. Approximately 700 judges supported the Manifest. So lack of internal support rather than lack of external support seemed to pose a problem for the judiciary. What should the judiciary’s course of action be? Whereas the reputation study points to increasing the operational capacity of the courts, the supporters of the Manifest warn that too strong a focus on output would endanger the quality of justice. These contradictory factors demand reflection on the value identity of the judiciary. In our view this requires the Council for the Judiciary to focus less on management and more on governance. For judges this requires that they, through the development of professional standards, define and refine their view on ‘good administration of justice’.

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 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.

De WRR neemt een toezichtparadox waar. Er is een roep om meer toezicht, want er gaat van alles mis, en tegelijkertijd een roep om minder toezicht, want er zijn te veel regeltjes. Toezicht staat daarmee in de schijnwerpers. Het speelt niet direct een glansrol in deze voorstelling. De avond zou kunnen eindigen met applaus van het publiek – maar als er tussentijds gejoel uitbreekt, is het nog maar de vraag hoe de voorstelling zal aflopen.

De verdeling van bevoegdheden tussen de Europese Unie en de lidstaten staat sterk in de belangstelling. In deze bijdrage wordt ingegaan op de vraag of meer te zeggen valt over wie wat moet doen in Europa. Onderzocht wordt welke bijdrage juristen, economen en politicologen tot nu toe aan dit debat hebben geleverd. Vervolgens wordt een aanzet gedaan voor de ontwikkeling van een kader dat kan helpen om de vraag naar de optimale bevoegdheidsverdeling te beantwoorden.

Traumatic experiences and post-traumatic stress disorder have been linked to increased aggression and child abuse. Surprisingly, a dearth of studies investigates the impact of trauma on fatherhood. The present study investigates the extent of father-involvement and the influence of post-traumatic stress on the parent-child relationship in a refugee and asylum seeker population (N = 80). The results show that fathers were less involved in care-giving. Traumatic stress symptoms negatively affected the perception and the actual quality of parent-child interaction likewise posttraumatic stress influences the quality of mother-child interaction. The levels of observed hostility and reported aggression are a particular concern.

Proportionaliteit van wetgeving omvat zowel de rechtvaardiging van overheidsinterventie als de keuze van het middel ter bereiking van het doel en de effectiviteit van de maatregel. De bijdrage plaatst de proportionaliteitsvraag in de sleutel van de rechtsstaat en de bescherming van burgerlijke vrijheden. Beperken van vrijheidsrechten en ingrijpen in wezenlijke elementen van de maatschappelijke ordening mogen niet verder gaan dan noodzakelijk ter bereiking van een legitiem doel. Het proportionaliteitsbeginsel als toetssteen voor wetgeving is evenwel problematisch omdat maatschappelijke en politieke oordelen over de wenselijkheid van wetgevend optreden evenzeer meespelen en legitiem zijn. In deze bijdrage wordt uiteengezet dat desondanks proportionaliteit en daarmee ook politieke afwegingen over noodzaak en inhoud van een wettelijke maatregel door de rechter kunnen worden getoetst.

Over the past couple of decades, the Netherlands unmistakably has developed into a Garlandian style culture of control. A distinct feature of this Dutch culture of control is the increasing interconnectedness between crime and migration in both public and political discourse. As a result of the growing urge to control potential dangerous others, various stop & search powers have been implemented. Besides by their proactive nature, these powers are defined by the fact that they give a fair amount of discretion to individual police officers in deciding who to stop. In this article, while drawing on criminological, sociological and social psychological literature on stereotyping and the rise of a crime complex, the authors will argue that the structural and cultural changes fuelling the emergence of a the typical Dutch culture of control might also affect the individual choices made by police officers in such a way that it fosters ethnic profiling.