Definitions
 

Longitudinal research into human trafficking discourses

Researcher: Ilse Ras

Ilse Ras is currently conducting longitudinal and diachronic research into media reporting on human trafficking. This research is part of a bigger programme examining perceptions of human trafficking and exploitation in media, corporate communications and political debate.

Perceptions of environmental crime

Researchers: Jelle Brands, Marieke Kluin and Lisa Ansems

This project and its subprojects will explore the various types of perceptions and responses to environmental crime among citizens (cognitive, affective, normative and conative), how those perceptions and responses can be identified and which factors influence them.

Phenomenon and case studies

Trust in public institutions after charges against Tata Steel

Researcher: Lisa Ansems

This project involves qualitative research on trust in public institutions among citizens who brought criminal charges against Tata Steel. In particular, it explores what contributes to these citizens’ high or low levels of trust in the various public institutions involved in enforcement and the role of perceived procedural justice and effectiveness in this. 

Youth involvement in organised crime: victimisation experiences and victim support in focus

Researchers: Fallon Cooper, Ieke de Vries, Babette Hazebroek, Maarten Kunst and Arjan Blokland

The current Dutch cabinet’s ‘highest priority’ is tackling organised, subversive crime, with a firm commitment to preventing young people from being recruited into organised crime activities and ‘turning into major criminals’. However, despite widespread concerns about the recruitment of young people into organised crime, the mechanisms by which they become involved and the harmful impact they may experience as a result of their involvement remain under-researched topics in academic literature. This PhD research is funded by a starter grant and analyses victimisation experiences and victim support for young people involved in organised crime through three aspects. These aspects are potential risk factors (the individual’s characteristics, life course and environment prior to involvement), the nature and extent of involvement in organised crime and the time of identification as a victim of criminal exploitation and the impact of identifying as a victim on the individual’s life course. These three aspects are studied from the perspectives of 1) young people; 2) parties in the criminal justice system (who may formally identify a young person as a victim or offender); and 3) based on national registration data on young people’s life course characteristics. 

The corporate life cycle

Researchers: Marieke Kluin, Arjan Blokland, Wim Huisman, Jelmar Meester and Frederike Oberheim

Inspired by the criminological approach of life course criminology, Marieke Kluin, in collaboration with Arjan Blokland (Leiden University/NSCR) and Wim Huisman (VU Amsterdam), is investigating the application of life course criminology and criminal careers to white-collar crime. Using longitudinal research, they are studying corporate criminal careers (Blokland et al., 2021 Wu et al., 2024). Companies also have a ‘life cycle’ and within business studies, a distinction is made between the various phases of a company’s life cycle. Meanwhile, research (Kluin et al., 2018) shows that companies differ in their pattern of rule violation. In addition to this research, PhD student Jelmar Meester is currently investigating Dutch inland shipping in collaboration with the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT). PhD student Frederike Oberheim is researching the financial sector in collaboration with De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) and the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM). 

Looking beyond the victim: the role of the environment in child sexual exploitation

Researcher: Ieke de Vries

Although sexual exploitation has featured highly on national and international policy agendas for many years now, knowledge gaps on risk factors for victimisation hinder effective strategies. With unique data on individuals, their living environments and innovative methods, this Veni grant-funded project adds new insights on risk and the risk distribution among victims of sexual exploitation. This will allow early identification or even prevention of victimisation. 

Enforcement

Legal Entities and Financial Economic Crime

Researcher: Jan Crijns

Jan Crijns’ research and teaching primarily focuses on enforcement, and especially how criminal and administrative law enforcement converges and merges. Partly for this reason, Jan is increasingly involved in financial-economic law and enforcement towards legal persons; the latter through a number of PhD projects: 

- Marijke Veerman –The apparent elusiveness of multinational banks to law enforcement through the state judicial system

- David Sander – Companies’ rights to a fair trial in criminal proceedings

- Sjoerd Lopik – The role of criminal law in the legal response to climate change

- David Emmelkamp – The legal position of legal persons in public sanctions law

- Nieke Verschaeren – Diversity within enforcement systems

Private-integrated approach and criminal law principles

Researcher: Marcel de Groodt

One area of this PhD research focuses on identifying and valuing enforcement models where the government uses information obtained through private parties, other than private investigators and investigative journalists. This research explores enforcement models in which parties are obliged, under threat of criminal provisions or otherwise, to supply information and forms in which parties voluntarily cooperate with the authorities and supply information in return for payment. The question that arises with regard to these enforcement models is how they relate to criminal law principles, and in particular the self-incrimination principle. 

Serious environmental crime: the effectiveness of criminal sanctions

Researchers: Marieke Kluin. Lisa Ansems and Aaron Bron

The Research and Data Centre (WODC) and the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security have commissioned Leiden University and the University of Utrecht to conduct qualitative and legal research into the effectiveness of criminal sanctions in response to serious environmental offences. This involves identifying the current legal options, which sanctions are used in practice, existing obstacles, which sanctions are most effective under which circumstances and in which ways the use of sanctions can be improved.

Criminal law and climate change

Researcher: Sjoerd Lopik

Sjoerd Lopik is researching the role of criminal law within the legal response to climate change. He is investigating the potential for criminalising greenhouse gas emissions based on general principles of criminal law such as legality and causality. He is also exploring climate legislation that can be enforced through special criminal law, the potential for criminalising greenwashing and the added value of criminalising ecocide. 

Dynamics of judicial scrutiny in cross-border evidence gathering

Researcher: Anna Mosna

This research project is embedded in the EU JUST Action Grant Project ‘Mould EIO Review’ (MEIOR) and coordinated by Professor Michele Panzavolta (PI, KU Leuven) and Anna Mosna. It is conducted in collaboration with the University of Padua (Professor Marcello Daniele), the University of Gdansk (Professor Slawomir Steinborn), the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Professor Lorena Bachmaier Winter) and the University of Uppsala (Professor Maria Bergström). Anna Mosna's research focuses on transnational investigations conducted through a European Investigation Order (EIO) and analyses the minimum requirements for effective judicial protection. The aim of the research is to develop guidelines for stakeholders as well as policy and legislation for better cross-border legal protection. The research also covers investigations by the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) into crimes that affect the European Union's financial interests, such as money laundering and tax fraud. 

In tackling the issue of more effective judicial protection in cross-border evidence gathering, both the study focusing on the EIO and the research on the cross-border investigations of the EPPO propose effective and efficient judicial cooperation in criminal matters as the key answer to criminal phenomena with a cross-border element—which characterises largely also subversive and financial-economic crime. 

Right to silence in administrative punitive proceedings

Researcher: Anna Mosna

This research is part of an EUAF Action Grant Project coordinated by Professor Michele Panzavolta (PI, KU Leuven) and Anna Mosna and is conducted in collaboration with the Luiss university in Rome. It focuses on the extent to which the self-incrimination principle also applies to administrative and European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) investigations. Placing the difference between administrative and criminal proceedings in perspective, it is important to examine which fundamental principles and rights traditionally developed for criminal proceedings should also apply to administrative proceedings, including tax, market abuse and competition investigations. The research aims to develop guidelines for stakeholders including OLAF and contribute to a unified approach to protecting the right to remain silent. 

Considering the strong link between administrative and criminal investigations in the domain of economic-financial crime, this research proposes a more consistent protection of the right to silence in administrative punitive proceedings to ensure that evidence gathered in this context meets the admissibility standards also of criminal proceedings and, thus, allows for effective enforcement. 

Challenges of Digitalisation for Criminal Laws Protecting State and Democracy

Researchers: Jannemieke Ouwerkerk and Jeroen ten Voorde

This comparative law ECPI project is coordinated by Professor Frank Zimmerman (University of Münster) and investigates the extent to which criminal law protects democracy and the state in times of digitalisation. The research focuses on political fake news, providers’ responsibility for illegal content on their networks and digital attacks on vital infrastructure, aiming to draw up draft recommendations for legislation and policy. 

Companies’ rights to a fair trial in criminal proceedings

Researcher: David Sander

In this PhD research project, David Sander explores the special due process issues that suspicious legal persons may experience, noting in particular that the issues in question are not, less often, less likely or differently perceived by suspected natural persons than by legal persons. A follow-up question is how these issues can be further interpreted and categorised. The aim is also to value the issues normatively and, where any problems are identified, to explore potential avenues for solving them.

The apparent elusiveness of multinational banks to law enforcement through the state judicial system

Researcher: Marijke Veerman

Multinationals can appear to be elusive to enforcement through the state judicial system, both within criminal law and private law. On a somewhat regular basis, enforcement encounters jurisdictional problems, issues regarding limitations in the range of sanctions and the excessive implications of sanctions. This not only results in negative public responses – it also affects the legitimacy and effectiveness of the state judicial system. Possible solutions to this are settlements (with the Dutch Public Prosecution Service and in private contexts) and arbitration, but are these solutions desirable? Are other solutions possible that would help the traditional legal system engage multinationals? This PhD research looks for answers from criminal and private law, drawing inspiration from criminology and economics. 

• Bhimani, S., de Vries, I., Sneesby, A., Farrell, A. & Maass, K. The ties that link us: Uncovering the socio-technic connections of labor trafficking networks. Production and Operations Management (forthcoming in 2024).
• Blokland A.A.J., Kluin M.H.A. & Huisman W. (2021), Life-course criminology and corporate offending. In: Rooij B. van & Sokol D.D. (red.) The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 684-704.
• J.H. Crijns, M. Haentjes & R.C.P. Haentjes (red.), The enforcement of EU financial law, Oxford: Hart Publishing 2022.
• J.H. Crijns, Rechterlijke toetsing van hoge transacties in strafzaken: contracteren onder toezicht, in: C.G. Breedveld-de Voogd e.a. (red.), Sluitertijd – Reflecties op het werk van Jaap Hijma, Deventer: Wolters Kluwer 2020, p. 389-403.
• Farrell, A., Dank, M., de Vries, I., Kafafian, M., Hughes, A., & Lockwood, S. (2019). Failing victims? Challenges of the police response to human trafficking. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(3), 649-673.
• Farrell, A., Bright, K., de Vries, I., Pfeffer, R., & Dank, M. (2020). Policing labor trafficking in the United States. Trends in Organized Crime, 23, 36-56.
• Kluin M.H.A., Blokland A.A.J., Huisman W., Peeters M.P., Wiering E. & Jaspers S.J. (2018), Patronen in regelovertreding in de chemische industrie, Tijdschrift voor Criminologie 60(4): 421-454.
• Kluin M.H.A., Wiering E., Peeters M.P., Blokland A.A.J. & Huisman W. (2020), Regelovertreding en incidenten bij Brzo-bedrijven: een longitudinale benadering. Den Haag: Boom criminologie.
• Van Meeteren, M. & de Vries, I. (2023). De noodzaak van een holistische benadering bij de aanpak van arbeidsuitbuiting. In: Y. Erkens, C. de Groot, C. van Oostrum (Eds.). Phanta Rhei: Recht een duurzaamheid (pp. 81-6). Boom juridisch.

• Mosna A. (2024), Judicial Protection in EU Cross-Border Evidence-Gathering: the EIO as a Case Study, European Criminal Law Review 14(2): 148-176.

• Panzavolta M. & Mosna A. (2024), Ten Years of EIO: Is It Time for an Overhaul?, European Criminal Law Review 14(2): 131-134.

• Mosna A. (2024), Cultural Heritage Protection and Restitution Beyond the Divide Between Cultural Nationalism and Cultural Internationalism: The Need for a Holistic Approach. In: Fabiani M.D., Burmon K.M. & Hufnagel S. (Eds.), Cultural Property Crime and the Law: Legal Approaches to Protection, Repatriation, and Countering Illicit Trade. Transnational Criminal Justice. London: Routledge. 62-78.

• Mosna A. (2023) More than Antiquities Trafficking: The Issue is Antiquities Laundering, in Fabiani M.D., Burmon K.M. & Hufnagel S. (eds.), Global Perspectives on Cultural Property Crime, Routledge, 99-118
• Mosna A. & Soana G. (2023) NFTs and the virtual yet concrete art of money laundering, Computer Law and Security Review 51, 1-10.
• Mosna A. (2022) Give art market regulation a chance, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 29(3), 304-327.
• Mosna A. & Soana G. (2022) When art goes virtual: what status for collectible NFTs under the current EU Anti Money-Laundering regime, EU Law Analysis
• De Vries, I., & Farrell, A. (2018). Labor trafficking victimizations: Repeat victimization and polyvictimization. Psychology of Violence, 8(5), 630.
• De Vries, I., & Farrell, A. (2023). Explaining the use of traditional law enforcement responses to human trafficking concerns in illicit massage businesses. Justice quarterly, 40(3), 337-362.
• De Vries, I., Jose, M., Farrell, A. (2020). It’s your business: The role of the private sector in human trafficking. In: J. Winterdyk & J. Jones (Eds). The Palgrave International Handbook of Human Trafficking (pp. 745-762). Palgrave Macmillan.
• De Vries, I. (2019). Connected to crime: An exploration of the nesting of labour trafficking and exploitation in legitimate markets. The British Journal of Criminology, 59(1), 209-230.
• Wu, Y., van Rooij, B., & Kluin, M. (2023). Organizational life-cycle analysis of corporate offending: insights into how changes in business cycles interact with regulatory oversight to shape compliance and violations. Crime, Law and Social Change, 1-21.