More than twenty criminals from Amsterdam were killed since 2012 in fierce conflicts in the criminal scene. The victims, mostly young men, can be divided into four categories. The assassins are young, often with a low intelligence, and easy to contract. They hope to give their criminal career a boost by killing. Their main motives are status and money. If the organization fears that they know too much and might inform the police, this can be a motive to kill them. Sometimes fear of betrayal of the organization is a motive for murder. The middlemen are important, because the ‘high profile targets’ want to stay out of sight of the assassins. The middlemen already have a rather secure position, although subordinate to the top. The motive to have them killed is often distrust and the fear that they know too much and would be able to tell the police too much. Revenge by another group is also an important reason they get killed. The high profile targets are top criminals in their thirties or forties mostly and in charge of the drug trafficking. The motive to have them killed is to gain influence and obtain a stronger, strategic position in the market, or – again – revenge. Rivals who are afraid to be killed, sometimes choose to be the first to act. The final category is formed by the victims killed by mistake. Recently at least three people were killed by assassins who thought they were shooting at a criminal target in the conflict. Just by mistake, because the victim drove the same kind of car, for example.

During an ethnographic research on the Rollin 200 Crips, a Dutch ‘gang’, Sin – one of the author’s informants – was shot and killed in Amsterdam. In this article, the author focuses on the ways in which the Rollin 200 Crips interpreted and made sense of Sin’s death. Several narratives of interpretation could be discerned in the aftermath of his death. Firstly, speculations and rumors about the motives brought feelings of uncertainty and suspicion to the fore, contrasting the otherwise instrumental logic of violence the Rollin 200 Crips communicated during the author’s fieldwork and in the media. In addition, Sin’s death produced a number of narratives about the ‘realness’ of Dutch gang life. For these reasons, Sin’s death represents an impressive, important and meaningful moment during the author’s fieldwork and, more generally, in the history of the Rollin 200 Crips.

Amsterdam is a popular destination for tourists. The number of tourists visiting Amsterdam increases every year and is expected to hit 23 million by 2025. This article describes which implications increasing tourism has on security and crime in Amsterdam. It appears that increasing tourism has a negative effect on social cohesion and can be a serious threat to safety. Tourism also attracts crime. Tourists are far more likely to suffer from crimes than inhabitants of Amsterdam. In particular they become victims of crimes like pickpocketing, mugging and scams. Tourists are also often associated with drug- and alcohol-related incidents. Apart from being a victim, a tourist can also be a perpetrator of crime. Inhabitants of Amsterdam regularly complain about nuisance caused by tourists. Especially subletted apartments via Airbnb is a serious concern for residents of Amsterdam and local policymakers.

Het wetje waarmee de hoogte van het eigen risico voor de zorgverzekering voor 2018 werd bevroren op € 385 (Stb. 2017, 356) kwam binnen drie dagen tot stand. De Tweede en Eerste Kamer behandelden het wetsvoorstel op dezelfde dag. In deze bijdrage wordt ingegaan op dit bijzondere wetgevingsproces. Onder meer wordt daarbij aandacht besteed aan de figuur van een mondeling eindverslag, waar de Eerste Kamer tegenwoordig anders mee omgaat dan voorheen. Ook wordt de vraag besproken waarom het wetje per se vóór 1 oktober in het Staatsblad moest staan. Op de ranglijst van de snelst tot stand gebrachte wetten ooit neemt het bevriezingswetje waarschijnlijk een (gedeelde) tweede plaats in. De eerste plaats wordt ingenomen door twee crisiswetten uit 1914. Ook die wetten uit 1914 behandelden de Tweede en Eerste Kamer op dezelfde dag. Dat gebeurde later nog een keer in 1938. Uit de parlementaire geschiedenis blijkt overigens dat die totstandbrenging van een wet in enkele weken geen unicum is. Vaak worden wetten die heel snel tot stand moeten komen, aangeduid als ‘spoedwet’ of ‘noodwet’. Aan het slot van de bijdrage wordt deze terminologie besproken.

Bevel tot vervolging met last tot nader onderzoek ter zake van vernieling of beschadiging van gebouwen als gevolg van gaswinning, voor zover daarvan levensgevaar te duchten is.

In this contribution, the justification of restorative practices in prison is first discussed from a normative perspective. On the basis of Lippke’s retributive theory of imprisonment it is argued that modern, humane retributive sanctioning entails an obligation to provide prisoners with opportunities to engage in restorative practices. Second, restorative practices in prison are examined from the perspective of possible impacts on the empowerment of prisoners and their experience to move away from crime and do good. Finally, it is argued that in order to yield positive effects, restorative practices in prison need to be supported by a safe and healthy living environment.

The authors propose that perceptions of injustice play a central role in radicalization toward violent extremism and terrorism. Perceptions of unfair disadvantage in comparison with other groups (horizontal deprivation) or by societal authorities (vertical deprivation) will elicit strong emotional and behavioral reactions. In combination with feelings of personal uncertainty and a lack of cognitive capacities to control justice-related emotions, this increases the pull and attraction of radical ideologies. Furthermore, when people join a radical organization, a vicious circle of identification with and justification of radical ideology and illegitimization and rejection of the status quo follow, possibly resulting in the justification of violence to achieve social change. Injustice perceptions are difficult to change, but a better understanding of the basic processes involved allows for the development of prevention and deradicalization programs, which should focus on full and just societal integration of groups and individuals that have a high potential to radicalize.

In the past few years, about three hundred Dutch Muslims travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the violent jihad. This article explores the phenomenon by looking into the individual characteristics and processes of these Dutch jihadis. It presents the findings of a study of the life stories of twelve of them, showing the diversity of the group. It also looks into types of jihadists and their roles in the jihadist scene using categories provided by Maher and Bjørgo. The article arrives at the somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion that there is no standard Dutch jihadist and that we need to study more individual cases and better understand what is going on within the jihadist scene in order to be able to stop people from following the path towards the violent jihad.

In this exploratory study, two questions are addressed. Firstly, examining police files on honour based violence (HBV), do we find conflicts that take place in asylum centers, and if so, what can we learn from those files? Secondly, to what extent can these police files provide insight into the role of HBV in the lives of refugees in the Netherlands? What are the possibilities and limitations and how can they be dealt with in future research?
We apply the importation and deprivation models within total institutions on asylum centers and zoom in on honour based conflicts within these centers. The conflicts revolved around family life and morality issues, and resulted in both threats and physical violence. Among younger victims, their choice of partner was the main stumbling block, while later in the course of life conflicts arose from divorces and new relationships. Distinguishing between importation and deprivation factors within these HBV cases turned out to be difficult for two reasons. Firstly, within Dutch policy HBV is primarily viewed as violence within (extended) families and often originating from conflicts regarding partner choice and morality. This focus corresponds to importation rather than deprivation. Secondly, many cases showed interaction between the two factors, for example the many different backgrounds of the inhabitants of the asylum center can be viewed as both importation and deprivation. Future research should look into (a combination of) different data sources to shed light on the role of deprivation, because deprivational factors are more susceptible for (short term) policy measures to help prevent unnecessary stress and causes of conflict, whether honour based or not.

In the field of restorative justice (RJ), relatively much is known about victims’ reasons for wanting to participate in either mediation (as part of the criminal process) or victim-offender contact (parallel to the criminal process). Much less is known, however, about why victims refuse to take part in RJ services. The current article sheds light on this issue and is based on a joint exploratory research initiative by Victim in Focus and Victim Support the Netherlands. The results indicate that participation in mediation and victim-offender contact is significantly associated with the type of offense. Victims of traffic accidents participate significantly less often in mediation than victims of other offenses. In case of victim-offender contact, victims of violent crimes participate significantly less often while victims of traffic accidents participate more often than victims of other crimes. In addition, the referrer of the case and the victim’s age are also significantly associated with participation in victim-offender contact. When a case was referred through the judicial stakeholders, victims more often did not participate, whereas when victims registered themselves, it more often led to a form of victim-offender contact. With regard to age, victims younger than 25 were significantly less often willing to participate than older victims. The specific reasons victims mention for not wanting to participate in RJ are twofold: both emotional and pragmatic reasons are mentioned. The latter were most common with regard to both mediation and victim-offender contact: victims primarily wonder ‘what’s in it for me?’ and seem to base their decision on whether to partake in RJ on its answer. Mentioning emotional reasons not to participate was in case of victim-offender contact significantly associated with judicial referrers of the case, while such reasons were less mentioned when a case was referred through victim support in The Netherlands. To further explore these associations, more research is needed.

The phenomenon of victim participation in restorative justice (RJ) has been studied from two main angles: describing victims’ motivations to take part in RJ and studying the benefits that different groups of victims may obtain when participating in RJ. However, methodological limitations of former studies have impeded to offer conclusive answers to the question ‘for whom is RJ’. This article offers insights into these issues, focusing on the descriptive findings of a mixed-method study carried out in the context of victim-offender mediation (in Spain and Belgium) and assessed before the encounter (if any) took place. Findings suggest that, before mediation, victims’ personal characteristics tend to differ. The factor ‘victim-offender relationship’ also appeared as an important variable. Implications of these findings are discussed.