Organised Crime Prevention in the Netherlands: Exposing the Effectiveness of Preventive Measures

The preventive approach against organised crime has gained much attention since the early 1990s. On an international level as well as on a national one various preventive measures against organised crime have been developed. This is certainly true in the European Union and the Netherlands. This introduction chapter is divided into three sections. The first looks at the developments that led to the preventive approach to organised crime, focusing on the growing enthusiasm for the prevention of crime. Subsequently, it highlights the rise of the problem of organised crime on the political agenda, in particular in the European Union and in the Netherlands. Together these sections illustrate that at the beginning of the 1990s the merger of these developments led to enthusiasm for a preventative approach to organised crime. The second section provides insight into the content of organised crime prevention. This section introduces actual preventive measures taken to hinder organised crime, at least as European Union and Dutch authorities applied them. In an attempt to define organised crime prevention, the main characteristics of these measures are highlighted. The third section introduces the aim of this research. Here, the enthusiasm about the merger between crime prevention and the containment of organised crime is questioned. Moreover, this section details the research questions and methods.

Vanaf het begin van de jaren 1990 is er zowel op nationaal als op international vlak geïnvesteerd in een preventieve benadering van georganiseerde criminaliteit. Nederland heeft hier een progressieve rol in gespeeld. Met veel enthousiasme en hoge verwachtingen zijn verschillende preventieve maatregelen ontwikkeld. Sommige van deze maatregelen worden uitgedragen als ‘best practices’ in andere Europese landen. De vraag is echter wat beleidsmakers precies verwachten van de preventieve benadering en of de preventieve maatregelen ook aan deze verwachtingen kunnen voldoen. Kortom, wat is eigenlijk het effect van preventieve maatregelen op het probleem van georganiseerde criminaliteit. Deze vraag behelst de centrale probleemstelling van mijn onderzoek.