The effects of forensic mental health reports on decisions about guilt in the Netherlands: An experimental approach.

In the Netherlands, in approximately 30% of the more serious criminal cases, a pretrial forensic mental health report (FMHR) is requested to inform the court whether a mental disorder was present at the time of alleged crime, whether this disorder affected behavior and decision-making at the time of the offense and how this disorder may affect future (criminal) behavior. While informative for sentencing decisions, information about mental disorders or risk is irrelevant for the question whether the defendant committed the alleged crime. Yet based on cognitive psychological theory of evidence evaluation and integration, we hypothesized that information in an FMHR would affect the evaluation of evidence as well as the ultimate decision about guilt.

Short-Term Effects of Imprisonment Length on Recidivism in the Netherlands.

This article assesses the relationship between imprisonment length and recidivism. The data come from a unique longitudinal and nationwide study of Dutch prisoners, serving an average of 4.1 months of confinement ( = 1,467).

Differential reporting of mixed DNA profiles and its impact on jurists' evaluation of evidence. An international analysis.

While DNA analysis is considered by many the gold standard in forensic science, there is ample room for variation in interpretation and reporting. This seems especially the case when working with (complex) mixed DNA profiles. Two consecutive studies on differential DNA reporting were conducted.

Are stalkers recidivists? Repeated offending by convicted stalkers.

Stalking is an obsessive behavior. Legal definitions generally characterize stalking as repetitive conduct. It may therefore be expected that recidivism by stalkers is high.

Explaining capital punishment support in an abolitionist country: the case of The Netherlands.

A substantial minority (35%) of the Dutch population is in favor of capital punishment. In this paper, it is argued that in a staunchly abolitionist country such as The Netherlands, the existence and perseverance of such support can be better understood and explained by conceiving of capital punishment support in attitudinal terms as part of a law and order syndrome. Death penalty attitudes are analyzed by means of hierarchic logistic regression analysis.

From moral theory to penal attitudes and back: a theoretically integrated modeling approach.

From a moral standpoint, we would expect the practice of punishment to reflect a solid and commonly shared legitimizing framework. Several moral legal theories explicitly aim to provide such frameworks. Based on the theories of Retributivism, Utilitarianism, and Restorative Justice, this article first sets out to develop a theoretically integrated model of penal attitudes and then explores the extent to which Dutch judges' attitudes to punishment fit the model.