Ik zie, ik zie, wat jij niet ziet. Het gebruik van paragnosten door de Nederlandse politie.

Abstract In many police investigations a psychic turns up to help the investigation with his extraordinary knowledge of the crime and the crime scene. Little is known about how the Dutch police deals with psychics and their information. We conducted research into this phenomenon via interviews with experts, a review of the legal literature and an online questionnaire for police practitioners. Although a guideline by the public prosecutor’s office state psychics are not to be consulted without permission, most police practitioners are not aware of this guideline. At the moment little is known about the actual use of information of psychics in police investigations

Evidence-based aanpak van woninginbraak: Enkele voorstellen voor een intensievere aanpak van woninginbraak, op basis van een inventarisatie van de criminologische literatuur.

Regiopolitie Amsterdam-Amstelland, District WestFdR – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

Het effect van intensief surveilleren vlakbij en vlak na een eerdere inbraak

Can a fruitful police surveillance scheme be based on supposedly increased risk immediately after and around a previous burglary (‘near repeat phenomenon’)? An experiment in Amstelveen has been set up and analysed for this purpose. Some neighbourhoods got a ‘near repeat surveillance’ scheme, and the occurrence of burglary in those areas has been compared with control neighbourhoods elsewhere in town. We observed a change in the near repeat pattern in the experimental area, but no net effect on burglary rates, presumably because of large between-neighbourhood variance in incidence

Waarom is besmettelijkheid geen besmettelijkheid?

FdR – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

Forensics for Dummies?

Forensic disciplines such as DNA-matching, pathology and psychology are often requested to report in criminal cases. Within the Dutch legal system forensic experts are court appointed and little use of second opinion or contra-expertise by the defence is seen. This makes that forensic reports written by experts or crime scene investigators must be understood by lawyers – without a forensic background - in order to discuss this in court. So how do lawyers use forensic reports in their defence cases. Do lawyers contest the forensic reports on its content or procedure? A survey conducted among criminal lawyers was done to see on what elements forensic reports are debated in court and if different styles of reporting or outside expertise would be considered beneficial. This study addresses both equality of arms issues as well as the importance of interpretation of forensic evidence in criminal cases