Frontline care and security professionals in the Netherlands and Belgium are under increasing pressure for various reasons. On the labour market, it is difficult to find sufficient candidates to be deployed in care and safety work. In the workplace, managerialism further complicates the execution of already complex tasks. Citizens and care consumers have high expectations towards these professionals. And finally, frontline professionals must deal with difficult and ‘heavy’ cases that can impact on their physical and mental well-being. Taken all of these factors into consideration, this topic deserves a special issue of this journal.

Judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers are of pivotal importance in the enforcement of criminal justice. However, organisational, financial and professional constraints sometimes make it hard for them to play their part. This contribution highlights political and societal developments as well as professional and institutional challenges that can put a burden on professionals and paraprofessionals working in criminal law enforcement.

This article analyzes the challenges faced by police professionals in Belgium, particularly in Brussels’ Region. It explores concepts such as public legitimacy and power holder legitimacy in the context of policing. Through qualitative methods, the experiences of police officers and of youngsters are examined. The findings reveal a crisis of legitimacy, both internally and externally, leading to doubts about their societal mandate. The research concludes that there is a need for a clear definition of the contemporary societal mandate of the police and that work on the legitimacy of the police must begin within the organization itself

Previous research on violence against journalists in the Netherlands shows that 82 percent of journalists have had to deal with aggression and (violent) threats. In this article, we provide a rich insight into the phenomenon of violence against journalists based on a mixed-methods study. Our results indicate that violence against journalists can be categorized into four contexts that illustrate that violence against journalists has different types of offenders and victims, who deal with various forms of violence, in varying degrees. Our research shows that violence against journalists is a complex and multiple problem, which requires a differentiated approach.

In this essay, Geelhoed and Dijkman discuss the areas of tension within which professionals in the radicalization industry must navigate. Radicalization can be understood as a ‘wicked problem’, which contributes to dilemmas and risks for professionals that put them under pressure. In this essay, the authors examine various elements of these areas of tension to make the dilemmas and risks for professionals visible and to create more awareness about them. The authors pay particular attention to the issue of intersectionality and offer tools for dealing with the areas of tension in a constructive manner.