Protected living in some sort of gated community is popular. However Dutch protected living differs from, for instance, the living in American gated communities, the development tends to social discussions whether it is undesirable or not. Safety seems in the Netherlands not the first reason for protected living. Here, domestic and aesthetic reasons are much more important.

Since winter 2014, Belgian is faced with a possible rolling out of power. Blackouts come without any warning whilst the duration and cause of it is mostly unclear. Rolling outs are usually planned by utility companies to put small service areas without electricity, to cope with a high energy demand that the utility companies can’t supply. This rolling out plan can prevent a larger blackout and should make people aware of the consequences of a possible black-out.
Given this situation, this paper presents the result of a study asking citizens about their self-efficacy and organizations of their own house hold to deal with possible blackouts. For this survey, 473 citizens have been interviewed in 2 Belgian cities. We asked about their own action to organize themselves and were looking at their expectations of the government.

In this article we examine which factors are correlated to the rehabilitation of prisoners. Central is the prisoners’ willingness during their imprisonment to work on a successful return in society. Assumptions derived from the theory were statistically tested with data from the Dutch Detainee Survey 2014; a large-scale study, in which prisoners held in all Dutch penitentiary institutions (N = 29) were surveyed (n = 2120). The results are in line with the theory and show that detainees are more positive about their (potential for) rehabilitation when they are more satisfied with a) the way they are treated by correctional officers (staff orientation); b) active deployment of the so-called Detention and Re-integration Plan; c) their daily program and activities, and; d) the experienced autonomy and personal decision-making. These outcomes offer fruitful perspectives on how the prison system can promote a successful return of prisoners in our society.

Child homicide is a phenomenon that not infrequently leads to shock and societal unrest. However, the precise nature and scope of child homicide in the Netherlands remains unknown. This article attempts to fill the gap in our current knowledge by reporting descriptive research on child homicide in the Netherlands in the period 2009-2014. Further, this article aims to assess if media attention regarding child homicide brings about a so-called copycat-effect. By means of descriptive statistics, case, victim and perpetrator characteristics of 74 cases of filicide are assessed.

Community oriented policing (COP) can be seen as a co-production between citizens and police (and other stakeholders) in increasing public safety. There is a broad range of projects to cooperate with citizens. We ordered these projects along two dimensions: level of co-production (informing/consulting, advising and co-creation) and domain (prevention, law and order, investigation and quality of life). Today, most initiatives are at the lowest rungs (informing and consulting), but social media provide new possibilities to involve citizens in a more direct and fast way. The effects of the various projects are mostly limited to psycho-social factors like experienced safety, feelings of control and legitimacy. However recent studies show that these factors may have an indirect effect on crime rate. Furthermore, as reducing crime rate was not the only goal for introducing COP effect studies should not be limited to crime rate but incorporate a broad range of indicators.

This article demonstrates the influence of intellectual debate in policy paradigm changes. In response to piracy around the Horn of Africa, Dutch naval forces have participated in NATO and EU counter piracy operations since 2008. Although successful, also self protection measures by the merchant ships are required to provide security to individual ships. Since 2008 Dutch ship owners have advocated to amend legislation to allow private armed security teams (PAST) for individual protection, similar to policies by most foreign countries. Because of sensitivities concerning the private use of arms, policymakers, politicians, stakeholders and advisors have circumvented the issue. Instead of addressing the question of self defense, the paradigm of state monopoly for violence and the state’s obligation to provide security, made individual protection by embarked military teams to develop as a governmental service at levels that turned out to be unachievable for the armed forces. This policy caused several types of friction. Currently, the only acceptable solution seems to be to allow PAST and legislation is being prepared accordingly. A successful paradigm change however can only be achieved if an adequate new paradigm is constructed by intellectual debate. (Hall, Visser & Hemerijck) So far this debate has been too limited in scope. Debate has been state centric and focused on legal views and regulation. To resolve friction, additional analysis of differing roles by the state and individual entrepreneurs is required. Such analysis argues that the state severely reduces individual protection and politicians decide on the fundamental question of self defense by ships at the high seas.