The introduction in the Netherlands of the SOV measure in 2001, followed by the ISD Order in 2004, opened the opportunity for the courts to incarcerate systematic offenders, mostly addicts, for a period of two years. During the period of imprisonment convicted are offered various programs to kick their habits and tackle their other problems. The article assesses the social costs and benefits of the SOV/ISD measure. The analysis takes account of the improvement in general health and productivity of the participants, and models the crime reduction effects through special prevention, incapacitation and general deterrence. Substituting results from the first effectiveness study of the SOV program, which by the way only covers one follow-up year, it is calculated that the SOV/ISD measure may yield a positive net result of as much as € 4 million per participant.

This paper focuses on how organized crime in Bulgaria uses political corruption to achieve its goals. It focuses, though, on one specific type of criminal structures, the ones controlled by former security officers. More specifically it analyzes the criminal careers of two well known Bulgarian crime figures and former security officers. The way they use the instrument of corruption changes though the years when they evolve from relatively unimportant racketeers into powerful local oligarchs.

The Act introducing the Institution for Persistent Offenders Committal Order (ISD Order) took effect on 1 October 2004. The origins of the ISD Order are in safety policy. The order had a strong focus on imprisonment of persistent offenders. It can be seen as an exponent of the risk-oriented attitude towards safety, which has been predominant in recent years. At the start treatment of persistent offenders was of secundary importance and was only available for those who were motivated. But the ISD measure has had to deal with major problems in practice. The imprisoned ISD population proved to be one with complex problems like addiction, psychiatric illnesses and sometimes low intellectual abilities. The ISD institutions are ill-equipped for handling these people. The problems led to a slightly different attitude which is more oriented towards resocialization. Improvements are going on now, a process facilitated by a considerably improved co-operation between agencies around the ISD.

In the nineteenth century in the Netherlands, tramps and beggars were sent to Veenhuizen to work there as a form of punishment and rehabilitation. To investigate the background of these banished men, the authors drew a systematic 5% sample out of 6.000 men who were banished between 1896-1901. Using information from the so-called ‘signalements’-cards that were compiled, the authors found that the Veenhuizen men were not uneducated, unskilled workers, but on the contrary, often had some kind of (semi-)skilled profession. Many did not have a permanent abode, and only a few had (ever) been married. At on average 45 years of age, the Veenhuizen convicts were old for the era they lived in. As such these men lacked and had probably at some point in their lives lost societal as well as social ties, and had gone adrift.
Recidivism was high. While the Veenhuizen measure may have been effective in delivering society from the blemishes that these men represented, but in general it didn't turn these men into fully participating citizens.

Academic perceptions of litigation rates are dispersed: they vary from observations of a ‘litigation explosion’ to empirical accounts of ‘vanishing trials’. In this article the authors study whether civil trials are increasing or vanishing in the Netherlands. To find out, the authors studied trends in the number of civil cases in the Dutch courts. First, they observed developments in the filings as well as the dispositions of civil cases over the past 25 years, taking into account the trial-likeness of the procedures. Second, they put the Dutch figures - including other indicators of legal activity - in a European perspective. The findings show that the number of court cases in the Netherlands is on the rise. This does not automatically imply, however, that the Netherlands are a highly litigious society. ‘Light’ versions of trials are predominant, as is efficiency in the management of cases. Moreover, the number of lawyers and judges is rather small compared to other European countries.

In the years 2000-2003 crime on Curaçao seemed to be going out of control and the economy was virtually stagnant with low growth and high unemployment. This situation has changed significantly since 2005. The author shows that a targeted approach by the authorities pushed back major crime problems like the smuggling of cocaine on passenger flights, armed robberies and homicides. However only a permanent effort can guarantee the continuation of this success. Corruption and nepotism are still vibrant, but mainly concern individuals, not institutions as a whole, while the judiciary actively prosecutes corrupt officials. In the long run not only repression, but preventive measures are needed as well. A major cause of corruption and nepotism is the small scale of island life, in combination with economic protectionism and state ownership of companies. Structural adjustments in economic institutions and policy in recent years heralded the return of economic growth and employment. More adjustments in economic policy and institutions could further reduce incentives for corruption; these might also lead to the opening up of Curaçao's rigid labour markets for the many unemployed youngsters. A more autonomous Curaçao faces serious challenges, but the island's record so far gives no reason for despondency.

In 1954 the Statute of the Kingdom of the Netherlands came into force. This document can be seen as an internal Treaty between the Netherlands (as a country in Europe) and its former colonies. Nowadays three countries are (internal) partners in the Kingdom of the Netherlands: the Netherlands, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. In 2005 new negotiations have begun for a new (internal) structure of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands Antilles will cease to be a country in the Kingdom and will be divided into two new countries Curaçao and Sint Maarten. The other remaining (small) islands Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba will be part of the territory of the Netherlands as specific judicial bodies as meant in article 134 Dutch Constitution. A huge diplomatic and judicial procedure has started. Although it is not certain yet, in 2009 it looks as though these plans and procedures will be realized in the very near future.

In the CEPEJ report litigious divorce cases are selected for additional analysis to get a better understanding of the workload of the courts in Europe and to compare the figures in a more reliable manner.

The report presents the number of litigious divorce cases and the average length of litigious divorce proceedings. This article shows the variety of divorce legislation in European countries and concludes that the figures about divorce cases and length of procedures cannot be used as an indicator for the efficiency of justice in those countries. Furthermore the article presents some detailed information about Dutch divorce cases and shows that the figures presented in the CEPEJ report are incorrect. To get a better understanding of the quality of divorce procedures, the pros and cons of different systems should be investigated.

There is currently no legal base for financial supervision and crisis management at the European level. Powers are nationally based. This article develops the financial trilemma, which states that a stable financial system, an integrated financial system and national financial autonomy are incompatible. Any two of the three objectives can be combined, but not all three; one has to give. Assuming that a stable financial system is desirable, this article explores the trade-off between national financial autonomy and financial integration in Europe. Policymakers face a clear choice. If they want to preserve the benefits of the single market for financial services (financial integration), financial supervision and crisis management have to be based on a European footing. This article stresses that a strong legal base is needed for such European arrangements. Voluntary cooperation does not work in a crisis, as national governments tend to follow their national interests. The alternative to European arrangements is preserving the current national powers. This article predicts that banking will then become national: each country has its own national banks.

Charles Kindleberger unravelled the anatomy of a typical financial crisis in his famous book Manias, panics and crashes (1978). He stresses that during a boom the tendency to swindle and be swindled runs parallel to the tendency to speculate. In this article five famous and non-famous swindles over the past ninety years are analyzed. Each financial boom, and each financial crisis during this period of modern capitalism experienced at least one famous financial swindle, which is to be seen as typical for the boom and the subsequent deception. The five swindlers described are Charles (Carlo) Ponzi in the 1920s, Ivar Krueger around 1930, Bernie Cornfeld in the 1960s/1970s, Michael Milken in the 1980s and - very recently - Bernard Madoff. His 65 billion dollar fraud is to be seen as the first worldwide Ponzi scheme - a fraud that lasted longer, reached wider and cut deeper than any similar scheme in history. An analysis of these five cases yields several striking similarities. It is concluded that financial swindles are no random events, but the result of both structural changes and circular waves of economic and financial boom and bust.

Many actors have been blamed for the financial crisis: Greenspan, banks, rating agencies, careless mortgage takers and incompetent mainstream economists. This paper however focusses on other explanations for the crisis which are usually neglected in mainstream economics. The imbalances in the income and wealth distribution worldwide have become so large, that the poor cannot buy the goods produced by rich countries anymore, while the rich have become so rich that they cannot spend all their income anymore in the real sector. This lack of demand for goods has artificially been filled by unsecured debts given to the poor, but eventually led to a taking off of financial markets, and to a crisis. When imbalances are too large, this backfires. Government packages aimed at stabilizing the economy should therefore not forget the income and wealth distribution in order to be successful in the long run.

This article analyzes the development of maritime piracy in the last decennium. Various sources show that piracy in Southeast Asia has declined, probably due to a better cooperation between coastal states in this region in promoting maritime security and increasing surveillance of coast guards and navy vessels. Also a gradual improvement of the social economic situation seems to have contributed to the diminution of piracy as a source of income for the inhabitants of coastal regions. The dramatic rise of piracy incidents in recent years is mainly caused by the increasing activities of pirates in the Somali waters and the Indian Ocean. Extreme poverty, internal conflicts and the collapse of state authority in Somalia seem to have contributed to this development. The author discusses various types of piracy and differences in operating between Somali and Asian pirates.

Like surfers, legislators … who wish to change everyday social norms must wait for signs of a rising cultural support, catching it at just the right time... (Kagan and Skolnick 1993: 85) The empirical study of the relation between the way a law comes into being and its effectiveness in practice is an underdeveloped subject in the sociology of law. In this article this relation is studied with respect to smoking bans in the Netherlands. The focus is on private companies in general, with special attention for Dutch cafés, bars, hotels and restaurants (where such a ban was recently introduced). Dutch smoking bans in private establishments were only enacted after the government was convinced of public support and after a period of selfregulation. This proved to be a good preparation. The general picture of the relation between the emergence and the effectiveness of smoking bans in Dutch hotels, restaurants etc. is much the same. However, there is one sector - bars, pubs and the like – in which the smoking ban has encountered problems. In this sector a fourth of the establishments refuse to comply. A question addressed in this article is whether the legislator acted too precipitously with respect to this sector. This is obviously the case: there is less public support for smoking bans in such establishments and there had not been a preparatory period of selfregulation.

By the end of 2007, the world’s urban population had outnumbered the amount of people living in rural areas. Urbanization is expected to increase strongly in the developing world over the coming years, most of it through informal ways of accessing land and housing. In the initiatives of governments and donor organizations to deal with these developments, the concept of tenure security features increasingly prominently. It is inter alia expected to encourage investment in housing improvement, facilitate access to public services such as gas, water and electricity and also to make formal credit available. There is, however, no consensus as to what tenure security exactly means or how it is to be established. In the present paper, development policy based on establishing tenure security through land titling is critically examined and with the emphasis on urban informality in Latin America, an alternative concept of tenure security is proposed.