This article attempts to interpret and critically discuss the concept of incapacitation as a motive in the response to crime. Research shows that incapacitation – disabling or hindering people to commit offences – increasingly presents an important motive in the response to crime. This tendency is explored by several researchers in a new book titled Incapacitation: Trends and New Perspectives (Ashgate 2012). This tendency presents itself by the expansion of various modes of and grounds for detention, but also in the increase of other kinds of incapacitative measures, as well as in the fact that also administrative measures outside criminal law increasingly contain incapacitative elements. This tendency towards incapacitation of possible (re-)offenders can also be witnessed in contemporary politics. Examples discussed here are the intensive application of preventive custody, disqualifications, restraining orders accompanied by electronic monitoring, as well as administrative measures aimed at refusing certificates of good conduct or permits for specific commercial activities. It is argued that incapacitation often is not a proportionate and effective approach against crime. It appears to obscure the perspective on possibly more effective attempts to secure future behavior.

Police officers sometimes use creative ways in deploying their authorities when they deal with obstacles that hinder the pursuit for higher organizational goals or the common interest. By doing this, the boundaries of legislative rules might be stretched or even exceeded. This article reports the findings of a Dutch case study within the police into this phenomenon, which the authors described as the ‘creative use of authorities’. By means of observations and interviews within the researched police forces 57 cases were described and analyzed. The cases enabled a first categorization of distinctive forms of creative use of authorities with 4 essential core elements, that is: abstain from use, abuse, improper use and selective use of authorities.

In this article, the concept of ‘loverboys’ is discussed and characteristics and needs of victims are described. The term ‘loverboy’ refers to a person who uses a specific method of human trafficking of mostly girls and young women. The methods involve recruitment and grooming of the girl by contacting and seducing her by means of (the promise of) a romantic relationship, with the aim of exploiting the victim sexually and financially or use her as a drug mule or otherwise. The loverboy concept is not a new phenomenon, but the traditional image of a loverboy as a charming young man operating on his own is outmoded. Victims of loverboys form a broad and diverse group, but share certain characteristics that make them vulnerable, such as attachment issues, traumatic (sexual) events in their childhood and, to a lesser extent, intellectual disability. More insight is needed in the underlying mechanisms of repeated victimization − a serious issue with loverboy victims − and how this can be prevented. Regarding loverboy victims as a specific type of national human trafficking or youth prostitution instead of isolating it as a new phenomenon, is a first step in accomplishing this.