Pressure during investigative interview increases risk of wrong sentencing
Miscarriages of justice, such as the Schiedam Park murder case, occur in the Netherlands too. This case led to further research and recommendations to structure the investigative interview differently, and to report it better. In England and Wales, famous cases of miscarriages of justice are the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven. […]
In the Netherlands, victims of crime have long held so-called ‘victims’ rights’. EU guidelines setting minimum standards for these rights, and for the support and protection of the victims of criminal offences, were also laid down in 2017. The Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, which has invested in the funding and training of victim […]
Decreasing role of the judiciary: is replacing the judge possible and desirable?
Other bodies usually work faster than the judge and are cheaper as well. But do they do the job as well as the judge would? Are they just as independent, and do they offer just as much legal protection? The risks of devolving judicial tasks In the article entitled The decreasing role of the judiciary: […]
Added value of palm prints for investigating crimes
The police and public prosecution service want to take palm prints of every suspect to increase the efficacy of investigations. They consider the distinction in the law between finger marks and palm marks to be arbitrary, as in both cases it concerns friction-ridge evidence. Repeated calls have also been made in the Dutch Parliament for […]
During a hearing, the police would like to know whether a suspect is lying, and so they take careful note of a suspect’s behaviour. People often think that stuttering, looking away and fidgeting are signs that somebody is lying. However, these aspects are not connected. Certain other behaviours can be indicative of lying, such as […]
There are already more victims from hacking each year than from bicycle theft Online criminality is a new and diffuse form of criminality. That is reason enough for the Ministry of Justice and Security to commission research into whether the victim support policy needs to be adjusted in this regard. Because what is the impact […]
Barbora Hola Appointed as Member of the Young Academy of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences
Barbora Hola works as Senior Researcher at the NSCR and as Associate Professor at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at VU University Amsterdam. In 2017 she received a WISE fellowship to develop her research line on empirical studies of international criminal law and transitional justice after atrocities. Her research focuses in particular on […]
