By Mathijs Kros, Tjeerd W. Piersma & Karin A. Beijersbergen

This paper investigates criminal career characteristics and trajectories of domestic burglars, residential and commercial robbers, and street robbers in the Netherlands. We used longitudinal data which includes the criminal cases from 1997 until 2020 for all people of 12 years or older. We studied all 89,062 offenders that had at least one criminal case in the period between 2002 and 2004. Semiparametric group trajectory models were used to cluster these offenders into groups with similar criminal careers. Our results suggest that in order to predict who will follow the career path of a life-course persistent offender, it is important to distinguish between specific groups of offenders. Life-course persistent offenders are found amongst domestic burglars, residential and commercial robbers, and street robbers, but not amongst offenders of other types of crime. Furthermore, the size of the group of life-course persistent offenders varies between the domestic burglars, residential and commercial robbers, and street robbers and is largest for domestic burglars. Other criminal career characteristics, such as age of onset, age of termination, duration, and specialisation, are also compared between offender groups.

J Dev Life Course Criminology 9, 379–403 (2023).

By Robby Roks & Lieselot Bisschop & Richard Staring

As an important gateway to Europe, the Port of Rotterdam is known for its high-quality facilities and efficiency, but also attracts organised crime groups who use the transatlantic legal trade flows to traffic cocaine. Based on a qualitative study, consisting of 73 interviews with public and private actors, an analysis of 10 criminal investigations and field visits to public and private organisations in the port, this article examines how organised crime groups involved in cocaine trafficking take advantage of or adapt to the socio-spatial relations in the Port of Rotterdam. First, we pay attention to which physical spaces in the port of Rotterdam provide opportunities for cocaine trafficking. Second, we examine how the occupational and legal environment in which people, private companies and law enforcement agencies in the port work and interact provide opportunities for cocaine trafficking. Our findings demonstrate that increased security measures by both public and private actors directed at physical spaces result in a displacement to new spaces in and around the port of Rotterdam. Furthermore, the current socio-spatial relations in the port of Rotterdam also make the role of people on the inside – referring to a whole range of public and private employees – increasingly indispensable. 

Trends in Organized Crime (2021) 24:171–188 

By Sam Lawson

Previous studies commissioned by the EU have shown that the EU has been leading the world in imports of ‘embodied deforestation’ in the form of agricultural and timber products. This study goes a step further, by showing that the EU is also one of the largest importers of products resulting from illegal deforestation. The study estimates that in 2012, the EU imported EUR 6 billion of soy, beef, leather and palm oil which were grown or reared on land illegally cleared of forests in the tropics – almost a quarter of the total world trade. The Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Italy and France are among the largest consumers of these illegally sourced deforestation commodities, being collectively responsible for two-thirds of EU purchasing by value and three-quarters in terms of the areas of forest destroyed.

Brussels: FERN, 2015. 28p.