By Sjoukje van Deuren, Robby Roks & Teun van Ruitenburg

Outlaw biker clubs have drawn considerable attention of law enforcement agencies across European countries. Despite law enforcement efforts, the popularity of the outlaw biker subculture has been on the rise recently. There is, however, still little understanding of how individuals become engaged in the outlaw biker subculture. Using unique data from interviews with current members of the Dutch Hells Angels (N = 24), this article addresses the entry mechanisms into the club and how individuals become full-patched members. The results show that active recruitment by the Hells Angels MC and gradually growing into the club’s membership are common entering mechanisms. Pre-existing social ties, both on the club and the individual level, play a significant role for involvement in Dutch Hells Angels membership. Moreover, the Dutch Hells Angels apply various mechanisms to establish the trustworthiness, loyalty, and suitability of a person before becoming a full-patched member of the club.

Trends in Organized Crime, 2024.

By Maurice de Fleury.

“The science of the human brain has assumed such importance within a quarter of a century, it has so quickly reached so high a degree of precision, it results from so thorough and unanimous an agreement among biologists of all countries, it throws so strong a light upon the phenomena of the mind, that it would now be quite impossible to dispense with it in treating of general psychology, and more especially of criminal psychology. That knowledge—attended at first sight with disconcerting difficulties and alarms, by reason of its complexity—may, nevertheless, be easily simplified and placed within the reach of the least studious minds. For those who go deeply into it, the knowledge of the functions of the brain quickly assumes the pure lines, the harmonious proportions and the symmetrical arrangement of a typical French gardzn, with its straight walks, cut out in the dim forest of the old classical psychology.! Let us walk together in that garden, keeping a few plans, mere rudimentary drawings, under our eyes, lest we should lose our way. Here is one, in the first place, which represents the topography, the geography of one half of the brain,” or, to employ the phrase in use, the cerebral localizations on the left hemisphere.”

London: Downey & Co., 1901. 196p.

By Arthur Macdonald.

Being Essays on Education and Crime and Related Subjects, With Digests of Literature and a Bibliography. The present work may perhaps be considered as an introduction to abnormality in general, giving a description, diagnosis, and synthesis of human abnormalities, which seem to be constant factors in society.

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Education, Government Printing Office, 1893. 463p.

By J. Sanderson Christison.

“Last winter I contributed a series of articles to the Chicago Tribune under the caption of "Jail Types," which were so favorably noticed, both in Europe and America, that my friends have urged their appearance in book form. With some typographical corrections, the articles are here presented in their original text, with a number of additional sketches. While they do not constitute a systematic treatise on the subject of criminology, they present the points of most importance in a form and style intended to attract and interest the general reader, who will find much to reflect upon in the line of duty as a member of society at large.” (from Preface)

Chicago: THE W. T. Keener Co. 1897 117p.

By Clarence Darrow

An Address Delivered to the Prisoners in the Chicago County Jail. “Some of my good friends have insisted that while my theories are true, I should not have even them to inmates of a jail. Realizing the force of the suggestion that the truth should not be spoken to all people, I have caused these remarks to be printed on rather good paper and in a somewhat expensive form. In this way the truth does not become cheap and vulgar, and is only placed before those whose intelligence and affluence will prevent their being influenced by it. “ Clarene Darrow, Preface.

Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1910. 36p.

By Sytske Besemer.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree', 'Like father like son', 'Chip off the old block'. All these idioms seem to suggest that offspring resemble their parents and this also applies to criminal behaviour. This dissertation investigates mechanisms that might explain why children with criminal parents have a higher risk of committing crime. Several explanations for this intergenerational transmission have been contrasted, such as social learning (imitation of behaviour), official bias against certain families, and transmission of risk factors. Sytske Besemer investigated this in England as well as in the Netherlands. She answers questions such as: does it matter when the parents committed crime in the child's life? Do more persistent offenders transmit crime more than sporadic offenders? Do violent offenders specifically transmit violent behaviour or general crime to their children? Might the police and courts be biased against certain families? Could a deprived environment explain why parents as well as children show criminal behaviour? Does parental imprisonment pose an extra risk? This dissertation is the first study to specifically investigate these mechanisms of intergenerational continuity. The study is scientifically relevant because of its breadth, integration of conviction data as well as data on self-reported offending and environmental risk factors, its comparative design and the long periods over which transmission is investigated. Furthermore, the dissertation has important policy implications. It demonstrates how penal policy designed to reduce criminal behaviour might actually increase this behaviour in the next generation. This is especially important since Western countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands show an increasing trend towards more punitive policies.

Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2012. 198p.

By Havelock Ellis.

The “science” of criminality as presented by the famous psychiatrist Havelock Ellis. Lavishly illustrated with empirical and physical evidence to support his theories, findings and other truth claims. In this 4th edition (1910) of The Criminal first published in 1890, Ellis is pleased that there is “an approximation to general agreement” concerning his findings.

London. New York. Walter Scott Publishing. (1910) 494 pages.