Stepping out of terrorism

International audienc

On leaving criminal organizations

"Terrorist organizations, groups, cells or just ‘bunches of guys’ are systematically compared with other types of criminal or deviant organizations: organized crime such as the mafia, street gangs and religious sects. Of course there are many differences between them, especially where motivation is concerned, but they share the common factor that it is almost impossible or very difficult for individual members to step out. However, de-radicalization may follow analogous paths: aging out, accepting exit programs in prison or disengaging ideologically. The article discusses the obstacles that a government strategy that encourages desistance from terrorism by stepping out may encounter. It may be sufficient and more realistic to discourage radicals from using violence than to try to de-radicalize them by using counternarrative techniques." [author's abstract

Secret seducers - True tales of pimps in the red light district of Amsterdam

At the end of the 1990s, a moral panic erupted in the Netherlands about the phenomenon of what came to be known as 'loverboys'. The suspicion was that a growing number of Dutch girls were being groomed by handsome young men who employed all sorts of devious methods to prepare their girlfriends for life as a prostitute. Stories about a new generation of pimps, often of Moroccan origin, regularly appeared in the Dutch media. In this article, based on ethnographic fieldwork on pimps operating in the red-light district of Amsterdam, we describe the ways in which these young men operate and how they justify their behaviour. On the basis of empirical research we intend to present a more realistic picture of what goes on in the prostitution industry and highlight the discrepancy between what is reported in the media and what is actually happening in the prostitution sector. We also examine the background to the moral panic about loverboys and the ways in which these young men were supposedly able to induce many young girls into becoming prostitutes

Ethnocentrism in the Netherlands: A typological analysis

Contains fulltext : 3327.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)In research on unfavourable attitudes towards outgroups, the related favourable attitude towards the ingroup is generally ignored. Sumner (1906) called the presence of both related attitudes ethnocentrism. Since then only a small amount of empirical research has been dedicated to this theme. Based oh survey-data from a representative sample of Dutch citizens (N= 1,799) taken in 1985, this article concludes that ethnocentrism exists in The Netherlands. This contains unfavourable stereotypes about several outgroups as well as favourable stereotypes about the ingroup. The latter dimension also refers to nationalistic feelings. Both attitudes are highly related to each other. In this study the social and cultural pattern of ethnocentric people is shown to be of an authoritarian-conservative nature

Uittreden : Over het verlaten van criminele organisaties

Bij het aanvaarden van de leerstoel Radicaliseringsstudies gaat de orator na wat de criminologie aan theoretisch en praktisch inzicht heeft te bieden voor een belangrijk onderdeel van het typisch Nederlandse contraterrorismebeleid: deradicalisering. Hij vergelijkt dit beleid met de pogingen om jongens uit jeugdbendes te halen (met name Amerikaanse gangs); om gangsters de georganiseerde misdaad (maf� a) vaarwel te laten zeggen; om misleide jongeren uit duistere sektes terug te doen keren met behulp van deprogrammeren. Helpt het strafrecht? Sociale re-integratieprogramma's? Helpt het aanbieden van zogenaamde counternarratives? Bovenkerk pleit ervoor dat de overheid zich terughoudend opstelt. Mede op grond van de ervaringen van voormalige Molukse treinkapers, meent hij dat uittreders uit terroristische groepen die stoppen met geweld niet per se overgehaald hoeven worden om ook hun radicale overtuigingen op te geven. En overigens verdient het Nederlandse antiterrorismebeleid onafhankelijke evaluatie

Crime among young Moroccan men in the Netherlands: Does their regional origin matter?

Abstract High crime rates among second-generation immigrants are usually attributed to the ethnic group's weak socio-economic position in the host society. The causes of crime can however also be sought in their native countries or regions. Due to a lack of empirical data, this has rarely been tested. The Netherlands is an exception: small-scale ethnographic case studies among young Moroccan men in Dutch cities suggest that their regional background and culture, particularly if they are from the less developed Rif mountain area, may explain their high crime rates. In this article we examine whether this applies to the results of a quantitative study on all the Moroccan male juveniles in the Netherlands. At the individual level, our unique dataset is a combination of their native regions, criminal records (ever suspected of a crime), and demographic and socio-economic characteristics. Logistic regression analysis shows that current socio-economic position is a strong predictor of ever having been suspected of a criminal offence, and the impact of geographic descent, directly or indirectly via socioeconomic position in the Netherlands, is negligible. Accordingly, our findings on Moroccans in the Netherlands do not warrant our questioning the common explanation of the immigrant-crime connection in criminology and suggest further research to determine the specific host society's features that explain the over-representation of ethnic groups in crime statistics