Chantal van den Berg appointed Professor by Special Appointment
Utrecht University has appointed Chantal van den Berg as Professor by Special Appointment in the chair “Pedagogical Approach to Juvenile Delinquency and Victimization,” effective November 1. The special chair, established by the NSCR, focuses on offending and victimization among young people, both separately and in combination.
Perpetrator and Victim
Young people who commit offenses are relatively often also victims – or have been victims – of, for example, bullying, violence, or crime. Young people who have been placed out of their homes or are under supervision also commit offenses relatively often. This creates a vicious cycle: vulnerable young people who have themselves experienced significant hardship go on to create new victims.
Research still often distinguishes between perpetration and victimization. The new chair focuses on both. Its goal is to gather more knowledge about the prevalence (how often it occurs), the chronological sequence, and the risk and protective factors associated with victimization and perpetration, both separately and in relation to one another.
Van den Berg: “We know that victimization and perpetration occur regularly among young people and that these experiences overlap for some of them. But we still know far too little about how and why this overlap arises and what consequences it has for their further development. With this chair, I want to bring together insights from criminology, victimology, and pedagogy to better understand this complex relationship.”
Understanding how victimhood and perpetration are interrelated serves as an important building block for designing effective (forensic) interventions and prevention strategies, both individual and system-oriented. These interventions help prevent significant personal and societal suffering.
The chair is located in the Department of Orthopedagogy within the Faculty of Social Sciences at Utrecht University.
About Chantal van den Berg
Van den Berg is a senior researcher and program director of the “Victimization” research group at the NSCR. In addition, she served as an assistant professor at VU Amsterdam for ten years, until 2025. Her research focuses on sexual offending and victimization, judicial responses, and social participation. Quantitative research and the application of advanced research techniques play an important role in this work. In 2015, she earned her PhD from VU Amsterdam with a dissertation on the criminal careers and life courses of juvenile sex offenders.
Dr Chantal van den Berg
Senior Researcher | Program Leader
