In the Netherlands penal interventions aimed at the reduction of recidivism are progressively executed according to the ‘what works’ approach, a research tradition that tries to articulate the conditions under which penal interventions can be effective in preventing offenders to relapse into crime. The ideas on ‘what works’ originate from international studies, but what about the Dutch research itself? Which interventions have proved to be successful in the Netherlands and which have had adverse results? The WODC has carried out a meta-analysis of all relevant studies that have been published in the Netherlands and the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium since the early seventies of the previous century. 141 evaluations were identified, 83 of which contained some sort of comparison with a control group. Results indicate that programmes aimed at adult offenders were more successful than interventions for youth and young adults. Programmes based on the idea of rehabilitation appeared to have been more successful than sanctions based on deterrence.

Annually hundreds of victims make use of their right to speak in court. Victims often expect this will result in more punitive sentences. According to judges this is unlikely. This experiment among law students examines the influence of victim impact statements (VIS) on the sentencing outcome. Furthermore the effect of how the statement is delivered is examined. Is there a difference between the VIS as document in the case file and one delivered by the victim in court? Does it matter if the victim still has visible injuries? Study findings indicate that neither the presence of a VIS, nor the mode of delivery and visible injuries affect sentence length.

Based on qualitative research within Chinese restaurants in the Netherlands, the authors describe and discuss (informal) labour relations among Chinese restaurant owners and their illegal Chinese workers. It is argued that a too one-sided emphasis on interpreting these labour relations in terms of ‘labour exploitation’ reduces employers to offenders and employees to victims. Such a judicial perspective hinders a clear view on the causes of underlying themes as illegal labour and illegal stay. The authors discuss how restaurant owners and employees operate in a ‘moral economy’ in which a demand for cheap products and flexible, motivated, cheap, and capable labour interacts with culturally shared expectations on justice and reciprocity and influences labour relations.