When organized crime reached the political agenda in the early 1990s, it was framed in terms of “Mafia‐type” organizations and infiltration in (local) governments, geographical areas, and economic sectors (racketeering). This conception contradicted the phenomenon: the primary business of organized crime is more fittingly described as “transit crime,” as opposed to the control of economic sectors or regions. Criminal groups should be viewed as “criminal networks” (instead of as pyramidal structures), as can be seen in several illegal activities: drug trafficking, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, smuggling of illegal immigrants, arms trafficking, and trafficking in stolen vehicles. The misconception of the nature of organized crime put criminal investigation strategies on the wrong track, but the changing view of organized crime is mirrored by a change in criminal investigation strategies. Flexible “prompt intervention” strategies are more common, as an alternative to the large‐scale and...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/501509

Organized crime, transit crime and racketeering.

Across Europe, citizens are increasingly expected to participate in the implementation of flood risk management (FRM), by engaging in voluntary-based activities to enhance preparedness, implementing property-level measures, and so forth. Although citizen participation in FRM decision making is widely addressed in academic literature, citizens’ involvement in the delivery of FRM measures is comparatively understudied. Drawing from public administration literature, we adopted the notion of “coproduction” as an analytical framework for studying the interaction between citizens and public authorities, from the decision-making process through to the implementation of FRM in practice. We considered to what extent coproduction is evident in selected European Union (EU) member states, drawing from research conducted within the EU project STAR-FLOOD (Strengthening and Redesigning European Flood Risk Practices towards Appropriate and Resilient Flood Risk Governance Arrangements). On the basis of a cross-country comparison between Flanders (Belgium), England (United Kingdom), France, the Netherlands, and Poland, we have highlighted the varied forms of coproduction and reflected on how these have been established within divergent settings. Coproduction is most prominent in discourse and practice in England and is emergent in France and Flanders. By contrast, FRM in the Netherlands and Poland remains almost exclusively reliant on governmental protection measures and thereby consultation-based forms of coproduction. Analysis revealed how these actions are motivated by different underlying rationales, which in turn shape the type of approaches and degree of institutionalization of coproduction. In the Netherlands, coproduction is primarily encouraged to increase societal resilience, whereas public authorities in the other countries also use it to improve cost-efficiency and redistribute responsibilities to its beneficiaries.

/pdf/coproducing-flood-risk-management-through-citizen-wsep1zvpvh.pdf

Coproducing flood risk management through citizen involvement: insights from cross-country comparison in Europe

Accountability is said to be about the management of expectations. Empirical studies reveal considerable variation in organizational interest, intensity and investment in accountability relationships. Less is known, however, as to what explains these observed variations. Drawing on accountability and reputation-concerned literatures, this paper argues that a reputation-based perspective to accountability offers an underlying logic that explains how account-giving actors and account-holding forums actually manage these expectations, how organisations make sense of and prioritise among accountability responsibilities. Reputational considerations act as a filtering mechanism of external demands and help account for variations in degrees of interest in, and intensity of, accountability. The resulting accountability outcomes are co-produced by the reputational investment of both account-giver and account-holder, resulting in distinct accountability constellations and outcomes

Reputation and accountability relationships: managing accountability expectations through reputation

Dutch police officers' preparation and performance of their arrest and self-defence skills: A questionnaire study

Protecting the safety of its citizens is the first and foremost responsibility of government. Crisis organisations assist society when safety incidents occur, and help to prevent and limit incidents. Their effective incident management requires rapid information sharing to coordinate operations and expedite decision making. Modern crisis organisations therefore depend on telecommunication services, especially since many have adopted net-centric operations. When telecommunication services are unavailable during an incident, damage will increase and people may die. In order not to be caught unprepared, these organisations must know their telecom service availability risks: they need to perform a risk assessment.

This thesis describes a method called Raster that is tailored for this domain and its challenges. Using Raster, crisis organisations can now discover, analyse and prioritise the availability risks of the telecommunication services that they use. Crisis organisations can be better prepared, helping society to be safer.

/pdf/assessing-telecommunication-service-availability-risks-for-31n85878u7.pdf

Assessing Telecommunication Service Availability Risks for Crisis Organisations

Politie : studies over haar werking en organisatie

This article overviews the principal structural features concerning the system of police accountability in the Netherlands. At issue is the police ability to deliver good standards in public safety, especially in the context of local communities and small towns, after a decade of police organisational reform. The article offers insights into the complexities for managing police accountability in the Netherlands under the current structure. Police systems across Europe are experiencing, to varying degrees, the tendency to centralise management functions. The Dutch case is an example of this. In the Netherlands, police reorganisation as a result of the Police Act 1993 has had negative consequences for local accountability which are not adequately addressed by the characteristic informalism that underpins the system. A tendency to 'structural incidentalism' exacerbates these weaknesses. The article concludes by calling for greater transparency in police decision making and greater participation by external r...

Policing and Accountability in the Netherlands: A Happy Marriage or a Stressful Relationship?

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1468-5973.12288

Lessons from the MH17 transboundary disaster investigation

textPolitiewetenschap Nr. 21.
In opdracht van: Programma Politie en Wetenschap
Uitgave in samenwerking met Politie en Wetenschap, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam en COT Instituut voor Veiligheids- en Crisismanagement
Met lit.opg. en reg
Met suppl.: Bĳlagen: A: Rapportage inhoudsanalyse. B: Enquete onder

E.R. Muller

Papers

Politie : studies over haar werking en organisatie

Policing and Accountability in the Netherlands: A Happy Marriage or a Stressful Relationship?

Lessons from the MH17 transboundary disaster investigation

Politie en media : feiten, fictie en imagopolitiek

Trends in Terrorisme