Dutch Police Research Articles

Understanding Co-Offending Patterns and Criminal Mentorship Using Police Registry Data

ABSTRACT The current study examines registration data from the Dutch police pertaining to 2,757 individuals and 10 different crime categories, at the offense, individual, and network levels of analysis. Moreover, a novel estimate is introduced which identifies individuals’ tendency to operate as mentors or mentees in criminal networks. We find co-offending to be conditional on the type of crime and to typically involve groups of two to three offenders. Moreover, we find that men and those aged 18–25 are most likely to co-offend and that co-offenders typically do not show a preference for particular co-offenders. Individuals with central positions in the co-offending network were found to be older and to offend more frequently with a higher average of co-offenders per offense, than those less central. Lastly, we find the novel estimate to be a promising tool for identifying mentor and mentee roles in large quantitative network data. The results of the current study emphasize the importance of studying co-offending on different analytical levels, and to differentiate co-offending by different crime types, network positions, and individual roles, to better inform theory and policy.

Collaborative interviewing of eyewitnesses: a field study

Purpose When eyewitnesses talk to each other after witnessing a crime, they can contaminate each other’s memory. However, laboratory research shows that collaborative interviewing can also result in correction of mistakes and retrieval of more new information. The aim of this study is to examine whether these laboratory findings would generalise to real police interviews in The Netherlands. Because little is known about which interviewing techniques Dutch police detectives use, the secondary aim was to examine how Dutch detectives approach individual and collaborative eyewitness interviews. Design/methodology/approach In a field study, witnesses of serious incidents (e.g. police shooting) were interviewed individually and then collaboratively by real investigators, resulting in 15 interviews of 1–2 h each from five witness pairs (5,534 details in total). Transcripts were coded for detail type, forensic relevance, verifiability, retrieval strategies and interviewing techniques. Results were described using both quantitative descriptive data and a qualitative analysis of interview excerpts. Findings On average, collaborative interviews resulted in 131 new details, over half of which were considered highly relevant to the police investigation. Interview excerpts demonstrated how content-focused retrieval strategies (acknowledgements, repetitions, restatements, elaborations) can elicit new and highly relevant details. Interviewers mostly asked clarifying questions and equal numbers of open, closed and yes/no questions, but rarely allowed for uninterrupted free recall. Interviewers asked a higher proportion of open questions during collaborative interviews than during individual interviews. Research limitations/implications Limitations included the small sample size and lack of a control condition. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the effectiveness and feasibility of the Collaborative Eyewitness Interview in real-world settings.

Sisyphus in Court: Moral injury and requests for recognition in the dynamic between the Dutch police organization and their personnel in the wake of work related psychological injuries

When police personnel suffering from work-related psychological injuries seek support and recognition from their organization, a complex dynamic can unfold. This may even be experienced as morally injurious, thus adding to the initial psychological injury. This article delves into this issue in the context of Dutch police personnel, analyzing the narratives of 13 (former) police officers through the theoretical framework of Moral Injury, (mis)recognition, and bureaucracy. Their stories reveal that these officers, having learned to view their organization as their ‘blue family’, yearned for support and recognition, while inherent bureaucratic constraints prevented the police organization from offering genuine recognition. The result was an isolating and existence-denying experience. Bureaucratic logic tends to make the police organization approach recognition-seeking officers as suspects obligated to prove their ‘sick status,’ while it simultaneously creates tendencies to ‘sanitize’ the organization from their illness. Such an interaction becomes a Sisyphean struggle for officers, igniting a 'solidified fight mode' in them and worsening their feelings of misrecognition. Ultimately, this dynamic may be characterized as morally injurious. These findings emphasize the importance of recognition, especially for officers dealing with psychological injuries, and allow us to distinguish between affirmative recognition (perpetuating unhealthy post-injury dynamics) and transformative recognition (changing them toward meaningful change). This study thus advances the understanding of how organizations can both hinder and promote recognition and support, underscoring the pivotal role of transformative recognition to foster healing from the initial psychological injury and prevent moral injury in the injury's aftermath.

Exploring the Interpersonal Outcomes of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Training Among Police Employees

Police employees have an essential role in sustaining safety and harmony within communities, and they need to stay well as individuals in order to achieve this. Yet, their stressful work environment does not always afford optimal interpersonal interactions. In collaboration with the Dutch police force, the present project explored the effects of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training on the fostering of constructive interpersonal responses as well as individual well-being among employees of the Dutch police. In total, 133 police employees participated in a non-randomized waitlist controlled MBSR intervention. Participants filled out four online questionnaires spread evenly over a period of six months on constructive interpersonal responses and individual well-being. Linear mixed-effects analyses showed increases on various indicators of constructive interpersonal responding and individual well-being from pre-to post-training. These results were largely maintained at two-month follow-up. Interestingly, the positive effects of mindfulness intervention did not generalize across all measures of constructive interpersonal responding. Moreover, more frequent home practice predicted training benefits. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

The effect of confession evidence on conviction, and considering alternative scenarios as remedy in a sample of police officers

AbstractIn order to prevent tunnel vision and ultimately miscarriages of justice, police, prosecutors and judges must remain open to alternative scenarios in which the suspect is in fact innocent. However, it is not evident from the literature that people are sufficiently aware of how alternative scenarios should be employed in the decision making process. In the present research, 230 Dutch police officers read one of three versions of a case description. In the first version, there was strong evidence against the primary suspect. In the second version, the suspect additionally confessed, increasing the body of incriminating evidence. In the third version, the suspect confessed, but before deciding on their conviction, participants were instructed to consider how well each piece of evidence fitted in the primary but also in the alternative scenario (in which the crime was committed by an alternative suspect). Contrary to expectations, the confession did not increase conviction and the alternative‐scenario consideration did not suppress conviction. Implications of these null findings are discussed.

Meaningful interventions: Applying a citizen-centric approach to problem-solving in community policing

Abstract Citizens generally express confidence in the police organization, but satisfaction with police services can diminish after voluntary contact with an officer. It appears that officers sometimes struggle to understand what citizens expect and need from them. Victims of crime may not necessarily wish to punish an offender; they may just want to be heard and have their problem resolved. In response, the Dutch police have introduced a pilot to provide ‘meaningful interventions’, such as conflict mediation, as a way to bridge institutional and citizen perspectives successfully. This article presents a qualitative evaluation of the pilot by applying the EMMIE framework, which stands for Effect, Mechanisms, Moderators, Implementation, and Economics, to the available data. In conclusion, meaningful interventions show promise in better aligning police service delivery with the needs and expectations of citizens. Future research is necessary to gain a fuller evidence-based analysis of how meaningful interventions work.

A Loss Cycle of Burnout Symptoms and Reduced Coping Self-Efficacy: A Latent Change Score Modelling Approach

Police officers are frequently faced with chronic and acute stressors, such as excessive workload, organizational stressors and emotionally charged reports. This study aims to examine the relationship between a form of chronic strain (ie, burnout symptoms) and a resource (ie, coping self-efficacy) in a sample of Dutch police officers. Specifically, we aim to investigate the existence of a loss cycle of resources. We use Latent Change Score modeling to investigate the potential depletion or loss cycle of coping self-efficacy as a result of burnout symptoms in a sample of 95 police officers who completed a survey on three consecutive timepoints. The lag between the measurements was approximately one year. We found that, during both one-year intervals, within-person increases in burnout symptoms were related to within-person decreases in coping self-efficacy. Also, the results emphasize the buffering role of coping self-efficacy for burnout symptoms, as within-person decreases in coping self-efficacy during the first year were associated with within-person increases in burnout symptoms during the following year. Together, the results imply that a loss cycle of coping self-efficacy and burnout symptoms may occur. For this we used Latent Change Score modeling, which is a relatively new approach which provides researchers with the opportunity to analyse multi-wave longitudinal data while focusing on within-person changes over time. Practically, police organizations are advised to monitor personnel wellbeing and resources, to maintain and promote sustainable employability of police officers and to be able to timely provide individuals with interventions. Limitations discussed are the use of self-report measures and large intervals between the measurements. Finally, future directions of research are discussed that would circumvent the reported limitations, such as multiple wave with shorter lags and incorporating confounding factors that could affect coping self-efficacy.

Structure, positions and mechanisms: A case study of two Dutch Salafi-Jihadi networks

Social network analysis can be a powerful tool to better understand the social context of terrorist activities, and it may also offer potential leads for agencies to intervene. Our access to Dutch police information allows us to analyse the relational features of two networks that include actors who planned acts of terrorism and were active in the dissemination of a Salafi-Jihadi interpretation of Islam ( n = 57; n = 26). Based on a mixed-method approach that combines qualitative and more formal statistical analysis (exponential random graph models), we analyse the structural characteristics of these networks, individual positions and the extent to which radical leaders, pre-existing family and friendship ties and radicalizing settings affect actors to form ties. We find that both networks resemble a core–periphery structure, with cores formed by a densely interconnected group of actors who frequently meet in radicalizing settings. Based on our findings, we discuss the potential effects of preventive and repressive measures developed within the Dutch counterterrorism framework.

No threat: Emotion regulation neurofeedback for police special forces recruits

Police officers of the Special Forces are confronted with highly demanding situations in terms of stress, high tension and threats to their lives. Their tasks are specifically high-risk operations, such as arrests of armed suspects and anti-terror interventions. Improving the emotion regulation skills of police officers might be a vital investment, supporting them to stay calm and focused. A promising approach is training emotion regulation by using real-time (rt-) fMRI neurofeedback. Specifically, downregulating activity in key areas of the fronto-limbic emotion regulation network in the presence of threatening stimuli.Thirteen recruits of the Dutch police special forces underwent six weekly rt-fMRI sessions, receiving neurofeedback from individualized regions of their emotion regulation network. Their task was to reduce the image size of threatening images, wherein the image size represented their brain activity. A reduction in image size represented successful downregulation. Participants were free to use their preferred regulation strategy. A control group of fifteen recruits received no neurofeedback. Both groups completed behavioural tests (image rating on evoked valence and arousal, questionnaire) before and after the neurofeedback training. We hypothesized that the neurofeedback group would improve in downregulation and would score better than the control group on the behavioural tests after the neurofeedback training.Neurofeedback training resulted in a significant decrease in image size (t(12) = 2.82, p = .015) and a trend towards decreased activation in the target regions (t(10) = 1.82, p = .099) from the first to the last session. Notably, subjects achieved downregulation below the pre-stimulus baseline in the last two sessions. No relevant differences between groups were found in the behavioural tasks.Through the training of rt-fMRI neurofeedback, participants learned to downregulate the activity in individualized areas of the emotion regulation network, by using their own preferred strategies. The lack of behavioural between-group differences may be explained by floor effects. Tasks that are close to real-life situations may be needed to uncover behavioural correlates of this emotion regulation training.

Understanding the moral myopia and ambiguity of post-employment conflicts of interest: comparing police to other public and private organizations

ABSTRACT While post-employment conflicts of interest (PECoI) carry important risks of integrity violations, empirical research is scarce. This paper provides insight into the meaning and the perceptions of PECoI in the Dutch (military) police compared to those in other public and private organizations, to draw lessons for the public management of ethics. The study combines document analysis with interviews (N = 32) and a quantitative vignette study (N = 75). We find that PECoI are a blind spot and ambiguous. Five (possible) manifestations of PECoI were identified, like the (mis)use of classified information for commercial purposes and of relations with former colleagues.

The relation between the individual assessment of victims by Dutch police and repeat victimization

ABSTRACT Dutch police officers perform an individual assessment for all victims they come into contact with. A victim’s vulnerability is assessed, based on six indicators and the employment of protection measures is decided upon. This study explored to what extent the indicators and protection measures are associated with repeat victimization. Analyses were based on Dutch police records from 146,585 victims and contained information from the individual assessment procedure and information repeat victimization within 1 year. Logistic regression analyses revealed that indicators and protection measures were significantly related to repeat victimization. The individual assessment may, therefore, contribute to the identification of victims vulnerable for repeat victimization as indicators referring to experiencing harm or a high-risk crime were related to repeat victimization. Also, the individual assessment might contribute to the protection of high-risk victims, as protection measures were found to mitigate the relation between some indicators and repeat victimization.

Rural Policing: Change and Continuity

In this paper changes in rural policing in the Netherlands over the past few decades are investigated. This study is an example of oral history, using interviews with rural police officers. The main changes in rural policing are related to different issues: organization of rural policing, views about police work, local knowledge and commitment, relations with local communities, and style of policing. This study shows that since the 1980s the Dutch police have gradually withdrawn from the countryside. Not much is left of the strong traditional position of the police in rural communities. Notwithstanding these developments, the rural police has partially kept is distinctive characteristic in policing style, which makes it different from the police that is often found in urban areas. Larger social density, less anonymity, stronger sense of community, and more social control are among the factors that have contributed to the continuity in the styles of rural policing. Still it looks as if a shift is being made to a different kind of policing in rural regions: less socially embedded, mainly operating from the outside, not as an integral elements of the local community, and generally operating reactively, only after an incident happened.

‘Just like I thought’: Street‐level bureaucrats trust AI recommendations if they confirm their professional judgment

AbstractArtificial Intelligence is increasingly used to support and improve street‐level decision‐making, but empirical evidence on how street‐level bureaucrats' work is affected by AI technologies is scarce. We investigate how AI recommendations affect street‐level bureaucrats' decision‐making and if explainable AI increases trust in such recommendations. We experimentally tested a realistic mock predictive policing system in a sample of Dutch police officers using a 2 × 2 factorial design. We found that police officers trust and follow AI recommendations that are congruent with their intuitive professional judgment. We found no effect of explanations on trust in AI recommendations. We conclude that police officers do not blindly trust AI technologies, but follow AI recommendations that confirm what they already thought. This highlights the potential of street‐level discretion in correcting faulty AI recommendations on the one hand, but, on the other hand, poses serious limits to the hope that fair AI systems can correct human biases.

The showability of policing: How police officers’ use of videos in organizational contexts reproduces police culture

While much scholarly literature on police ‘canteen’ culture focuses on police storytelling, there is little research on the effects of camera phone technologies on police behaviours, particularly in organizational settings. This article introduces the concept of showability to examine how police officers use videos in their everyday police life, and how this relates to police culture. Based on an ethnographic study of the Dutch police, it illustrates that officers show, share, and discuss videos of various policing acts such as arrests, car chases, and use-of-force events, and do this in various locations such as office spaces, squad cars, and on the streets. First and foremost, officers show videos to entertain and to educate themselves and their fellow officers. Second, showing videos is a new occupational practice that, like in telling stories, reinforces and refutes aspects of police culture, for instance, a masculine ethos. The article contributes to criminological scholarship on the era of ‘new visibility’ by demonstrating that showability is a form of inward visibility wherein officers generate a visual world that fits their professional vision. It also contributes to a sociological understanding of the ‘everydayness’ of police culture. I claim that showability is a key feature of policing practices, which is relevant in light of increasing pressures on the police to account for their work.

A review of the (potential) implications of climate change for policing practice worldwide

Abstract Climate change is now considered more than just an environmental issue, with far-reaching effects for society at large. While the exact implications of climate change for policing practice are still unknown, over the past two decades criminologists have anticipated that climate change will have a number of effects that will result in compromised safety and security. This article is informed by the outcome of a co-creation workshop with 16 practitioners and scholars of diverse backgrounds based in The Netherlands, who sought to conceptualize and systematize the existing knowledge on how climate change will most likely impact the professional practice of the Dutch (or any other) police. These challenges, with varying degrees of intensity, are observable at three main levels: the societal, organizational, and individual level. These levels cannot be separated neatly in practice but we use them as a structuring device, and to illustrate how dynamics on one level impact the others. This article aims to establish the precepts necessary to consider when exploring the intersection between climate change and policing. We conclude that much still needs to be done to ensure that the implications of climate change and the subject of policing are better aligned, and that climate change is recognized as an immediate challenge experienced on the ground and not treated as a distant, intangible phenomenon with possible future impacts. This starts with creating awareness about the possible ways in which it is already impacting the functioning of policing organizations, as well as their longer-term repercussions.

Chronic stressors and burnout in Dutch police officers: Two studies into the complex role of coping self-efficacy.

Burnout complaints are high for Dutch police officers. According to Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources theory, resources such as coping self-efficacy can play an important role in the burnout process. The aim of this study was to investigate the buffering effect of coping self-efficacy on burnout, as well as a possible depletion effect of burnout on coping self-efficacy. As such, this research consists of two studies namely, a two-wave study (N = 166) and three-wave study (N = 95) on Dutch police officers. They expand on previous research regarding coping resources and police burnout. Both studies show that the chronic stressor, work scheduling, was positively associated with burnout. Also, coping self-efficacy weakened the effect of work scheduling (Study 1) and workload (Study 2) on burnout. Moreover, there was a direct negative relationship between burnout and coping self-efficacy. The results indicate that burnout can lead to lower coping resources, initiating a potential cycle of resource loss and burnout. Further investigation into this depletion effect is required to provide police officers and organisations with tools to prevent burnout.

Primordial Brains and Bodies: How Neurobiological Discourses Shape Policing Experiences

This article demonstrates how the broader social development to understand behaviour and personhood as shaped by neurobiology forms a predominant narrative among police officers. Drawing on an ethnography of the Dutch police force and 73 interviews with officers, I examine first how they use neurobiological terms to describe and account for their embodied sensations as well as civilian behaviour. Second, I describe the functions these narratives have, that is, why officers use them. Finally, I show how neurobiological discourses are learned and (re)produced during training. Results indicate that officers invoke neurobiology both as facilitator of and explanation for action. The latter raises questions as to what extent neurobiological discourse obscures police responsibility and accountability. A more thorough understanding of how neurobiological discourses are used to understand and account for actions is relevant, given the growing pressures on public professionals to legitimise their work.

Corruption in the Dutch police in the period of the Middle Ages and the assessment of this social phenomenon in the historical and legal studies of J. Huizinga and P. Zyumthor

The article presents a historical and legal study of corruption as a multifaceted and multifaceted social phenomenon that originated during the emergence of the first states on earth and has come down to our time in all the variety of forms of abuse of power by individual officials or groups of people endowed with power. Despite the fact that many hundreds of scientific papers have been devoted to the phenomenon of corruption, which existed in one form or another in different historical periods, this social phenomenon continues to be an urgent and topical problem for Russian and foreign researchers, requiring constant attention from society due to its exceptional toxicity, significant expenditure of forces and means to combat it by each specific state individually and by the entire international community as a whole. In this regard, the works carried out within the framework of historical and legal research by the outstanding thinkers of the last century Johan Huizinga and Paul Zymthor, who devoted a significant part of their work to the study of corruption as a controversial social phenomenon that existed in the Netherlands in the Middle Ages, are of exceptional scientific value. The idea of ​​a comparative approach to the phenomenon of corruption with its ambiguous and changeable nature, revealed and described in the last century in the works of J. Huizinga and P. Zymthor, received real confirmation in the existing reality in which modern Dutch society found itself. The article also tells about the activities of the humanist writer J. Huizinga, directed against the ideology of fascism, and the brutal repressions committed by the Nazis against this outstanding person.

Intake and service staff: practices and challenges of a pivotal yet underexplored police occupation

Abstract This paper puts the spotlight on what is known within the Dutch police as ‘intake and service staff’ who are responsible for collecting, handling and filing crime reports from citizens. Comparable occupations are, for example, ‘front counter staff’, ‘call-takers’ and ‘police dispatchers’ in the Anglo-Saxon world. Many of the intake and service staff are women employed in part-time jobs. They hold the lowest rank in the force, have received only basic training and represent an underexplored police occupation. Scholarly publications that address the intake and service aspect of police work are scarce. However, intake and service staff are of utmost importance for ensuring satisfactory police–citizen contact and building public trust and legitimacy. We report on empirical research into the everyday practices and challenges of intake and service staff carried out in Rotterdam, with the aim of describing their work and formulating suggestions for improvement and for future research.

The Impact of Technological Support on Citizen Searches for Missing Persons

This study explored the effects of technological support on citizen searches during missing persons cases. A qualitative experimental design was used to investigate the effects of the prototype of an app, Sarea, developed by the Dutch police to help citizens initiate and coordinate a search. Two conditions were used: intervention groups, who were given phones with the app installed, and control groups without this support. A total of seven searches were conducted—four intervention groups and three control groups with group sizes between three and five people (N = 33). Data were collected through the System Usability Scale and one-to-one observation of individual searchers. The results showed that technology provides valuable support to citizens in coordinating and visualizing a citizen search. However, divided attention due to increased cognitive load during the search, and the unwarranted legitimization of human choices by a technological interface, can make collaboration between humans and technology problematic.