Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum

Abstract European states employ migration information campaigns (MICs) to discourage irregular migration to Europe by people from the Global South. Campaigns are justified by their initiators in various ways. On the one hand, campaigns are said to protect ‘potential migrants’ by helping them to make informed decisions (‘care’). On the other hand, campaigns respond to Europe's security objective of restricting migration flows (‘control’). Researchers have looked at various intermediaries involved in these campaigns. Yet, little attention has been given to individual European policy actors who decide on the funding and design of campaigns and how they navigate between campaigns' contradictory intentions to care for ‘potential migrants’ and to control borders. How do European campaign initiators justify the need for MICs? And what does this tell us about the migration imaginaries of those who develop migration governance measures? Based on interviews with European policymakers and campaign designers in the Netherlands and Senegal, this article examines their discursive acts of legitimation. It shows that in justifying their everyday work, they imagine themselves as humanitarian actors, and ‘potential migrants’ as depoliticized subjects in need of care. While initiators do sometimes examine campaigns critically, they build a worldview in which care is instrumental to border enforcement and in which compassion becomes a form of repressive ‘soft’ bordering.

While trauma-focused psychotherapies have been shown effective in youth with PTSD, the relationship between treatment response and alterations in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) associated with PTSD, remains incompletely understood. During neutral and personalized trauma script imagery heart rate (HR), pre-ejection period (PEP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were recorded in youth aged 8–18 with PTSD or partial PTSD (n = 76) and trauma-exposed controls (TEC) (n = 27) to determine ANS activity and stress reactivity. Within the patient group, 77.6% met the full DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for PTSD, the remaining 22.4% met the criteria for partial PTSD. Youth with (partial) PTSD were subsequently treated with eight sessions of either trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. PTSD severity was assessed using the Clinician-Administered PTSD scale for Children and Adolescents to divide patients into responders and non-responders. Youth with (partial) PTSD relative to TEC had higher overall HR during both neutral and trauma imagery (p = .05). Youth with (partial) PTSD showed RSA decrease during trauma imagery relative to neutral imagery, the reverse of TEC (p = .01). Relative to non-responders, responders demonstrated a significant baseline to posttreatment increase of RSA response to stress only when employing a ≥ 50% response criterion (p = .05) and not with the primary ≥ 30% criterion (p = .12). Our results suggest overall higher HR and sympathetic nervous system activity as well as vagal withdrawal in response to stress in youth with (partial) PTSD and only provide partial support for normalization of the latter with successful trauma-focused psychotherapy.

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.

Abstract In 2022, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus clade 2.3.4.4b became enzootic and caused mass mortality in Sandwich terns and other seabird species across northwestern Europe. We present data on characteristics of the spread of the virus between breeding colonies and the number of dead adult Sandwich terns recorded at breeding sites throughout northwestern Europe. Within two months after the first mortalities were reported, in total 20,531 adult Sandwich terns were found dead, which is >17% of the total northwestern European breeding population. Losses are likely higher, as we expect that many victims were not found (mortality rate might be up to 74% of the breeding population). Inside the colonies almost all chicks died. After the peak of the outbreak, in a colony established by late breeders, 25.7% of adults showed immunity against HPAI subtype H5. Removal of carcasses helped in reducing the spread of the disease and consequently total mortality. More research on the sources and modes of transmission, incubation times, effective containment and immunity is urgently needed to combat this major threat for colonial seabirds.

Data reusability has become a distinct characteristic of scientific, commercial, and administrative practices nowadays. However, an unlimited and careless reuse of data may lead to privacy breaches and unfair impacts on individuals and vulnerable groups. Data content adaption is a key aspect of preserving data privacy and fairness. Often, such content adaption affects data utility adversely. Further, the interaction between privacy protection and fairness protection can be subject to making trade-offs because mitigating privacy risks may adversely affect detecting unfairness and vice versa. Therefore, there is a need for research on understanding the interactions between data utility, privacy and fairness. To this end, in this contribution, we use concepts from causal reasoning and argue for adopting an integrated view on data content adaption for data driven decision support systems. This asks for considering the operation context wholistically. By means of two cases, we illustrate that, in some situations, local data content adaption may lead to low data quality and utility. An integrated wholistic approach, however, may result in reuse of the original data (i.e., without content adaption, thus in higher data utilization) without adversely affecting privacy and fairness. We discuss some implications of this approach and sketch a few directions for future research.

Employment is considered to help offenders desist from crime. Studies focusing on organized crime offenders, however, have suggested that employment may promote rather than inhibit crime for these offenders, but lacked quantitative individual-level data to confirm this finding. Using a large sample of organized crime offenders ( N = 1921) and longitudinal individual data on offending, employment, income and financial support, the current study aims to clarify the role of employment in the offending careers of these offenders. Fixed effects models show the effects of employment, self-employment and employment on the payroll. For organized crime offenders, being employed is associated with a 10 percent increase in offending and having their own business is associated with a 23 percent increase in offending. For organized crime offenders in leadership positions, employment is associated with a 47 percent increase in offending and owning a business is associated with a 68 percent increase in offending.

Since 2014 it has been possible to apply juvenile criminal law to young adults aged from 18 up to and including 22 years old in the Netherlands. This policy change is referred to as the Adolescent Criminal Law (ACL). According to the theory behind ACL, providing special treatment within the juvenile justice system to young adults during their transition into adulthood could reduce recidivism. In order to determine the relevance and impact of ACL regarding the application of juvenile sanctions to young adults, in this study a ‘Recently Introduced Policy instrument’ (RIPI) evaluation was conducted. The results suggest that applying juvenile justice sanctions to young adults could offer opportunities to cut short criminal careers and reduce crime amongst young adults. In addition, we found that the proportion of juvenile sanctions applied to young adults has increased despite the overall crime drop amongst young adults. Implications of our findings are discussed.

The year 2017 was a period of contradictionary development in terms of political stability in the Netherlands. On te one hand, the Mark Rutte II cabinet, the longest serving cabinet since the Second World War, was the first since 1998 to complete the entire term. On the other hand, the highly volatile 2017 national elections yielded the most fractionalized parliament in Dutch history. The ensuing cabinet formation was the longest on to date.