A well-established body of epidemiological research suggests that the prevalence of mental health problems (mental disorders, psychological distress, and substance use) in prisoner populations far exceeds that of non-incarcerated people in the surrounding community. Poor mental health in prisoners is associated with multiple adverse outcomes, including suicidal behaviour. In the past decade, novel data in Belgium and the Netherlands have been published on this topic, which have not been synthesized to date. The aim of the current systematic literature review was to provide an up-to-date overview of the mental health of prisoners in Belgium and the Netherlands. Based on 24 empirical studies conducted in 1997-2018, the authors conclude that people with mental health problems are overrepresented in Belgian and Dutch prisons, providing both a challenge and a public health opportunity to address the mental health care needs of a vulnerable and hard-to-engage population. Investing in the prevention and treatment of mental health problems not only benefits the prisoners concerned, but equally, society at large.

The present article examines the financial life of 131 jihadi travellers (JTs), also known as foreign terrorist fighters, from the Netherlands. For the purpose of the research, access was acquired to all their banking transactions in the year preceding their departure: over 60,000 transactions in total. Their income from work or employment, various forms of social assistance, student grants, and other income or expenditure were examined. The data provided a good picture of their financial independence, i.e., the extent to which they were capable of making their own living or needed to claim assistance from the authorities. The analysis shows that it is highly exceptional for Dutch JTs to be financially independent. Only 5 percent have sufficient income from work or employment without making any claims on the government for financial assistance, and are free of mounting debts. The low score can for a large part be explained by the fact that almost half of the JTs are under 23 years of age and/or receive a student grant. Their financial picture largely resembles ordinary students. Older JTs (over 22 years of age, and not having received a student grant for at least one year) underperform, however. Only 9 percent are financially independent. Financial support could perhaps be used to monitor or steer recipients’ role in society.

Illegal weed cultivation is increasingly perceived as an important societal problem. Most of existing research in this area focuses on the criminal organisations active on the cannabis market and the criminal profits that are gained here. The current study however focuses on the actors at the bottom of the cannabis market – the home growers – and aims at answering the following research question: what factors influence the chance of encountering an illegal weed cultivation at a certain residential address? In this study, the risk and protecting factors are taken into consideration on both the individual level (e.g. family composition and financial position of residents) and the neighbourhood level (e.g. social cohesion, physical disorganisation, level of criminality in a certain neighbourhood). In the current study, data of 401 illegal hemp cultivation sites discovered between 2011 and 2016 in homes in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, were analysed. Data from various quantitative data sources – like municipal data (BRP and data from the Social Domain) and data from the municipal neighbourhood monitors – were combined and analysed through a multilevel logistic regression. The results suggest that the likelihood of an illegal weed cultivation site is most prominently influenced by individual factors. Being married for instance seems to decrease the risk, whereas being divorced seems to increase the risk. The housing type also turns out to be of influence. On a neighbourhood level, physical disorganisation and the presence of other hemp cultivation sites in the neighbourhood are the only predictors for hemp cultivation. The results are discussed in the light of criminological theories regarding participation in crime, using the theoretical concepts motivation, opportunity, and control.

Terrorism could be regarded as an extreme type of (violent) criminal behaviour. Against this background, there is much to gain if criminological attention would be extended to terrorism. In this overview, the authors describe how and to what extent criminological theories may provide a significant contribution to underlying causes of terrorism. Previous criminological contributions to the field of terrorism have primarily taken a theory-extended approach, including routine activity theory, rational choice theory and strain theory. However, so far such studies lacked empirical data. Further, to this day, not much is known about the empirical applicability of other criminological theories, including desistance theories, which warrant particular attention. In order for criminology literature to contribute effectively to our understanding of terrorism and to pursue better counter-terrorism policies, empirical evidence should first be obtained. In this way, terrorism researchers, in close collaboration with criminologists, can deepen our theoretical and empirical understanding of this relatively underexplored field.