To get a broad and nuanced picture of (trends and developments in) juvenile crime, it's important to use multiple, independent sources and methods. Therefore, the Juvenile Crime Monitor does not only include registered police and justice statistics, but also self-report data on offending behavior among juveniles. Case file analysis is also conducted. In addition to interpreting quantitative statistics, qualitative findings are used for deeper analysis of developments. Altogether, this provides a nuanced picture of trends and developments in juvenile crime. This provides policymakers and advisors with clearer guidance for developing effective strategies to address juvenile crime than relying on data from singular sources or methods.
Latest update: April 2023
Sources and Methods
A considerable part of juvenile offenders and the offenses they commit remain unknown to police and justice. With the available sources, we can only visualize parts of actual juvenile crime and juvenile offenders. These sources consist of:
Non-judicial sources, such as self-report studies among a sample of juveniles, derived from the entire population of juveniles.
Judicial sources, such as registered police suspect data or registered data on convicted juveniles from the Public Prosecution Service and the courts.
In addition to providing insight into only part of all of juvenile crime, it must be noted that the perspective on what can be considered juvenile offending behavior varies per source. For instance, self-reported offending behavior mainly provides insight into more common and less serious types of offending, while registered judicial sources predominantly portray insights into more serious types of offending that are visible to the judiciary.
By applying multiple sources (and methods) alongside each other, the limitations of these individual sources are mitigated as much as possible, but not excluded. As such, the JCM describes trends and developments in juvenile crime in the broadest sense possible.
Sources Used in the JCM 2020
Source
Indicator
Period
Self-Report Juvenile Crime Monitor (MZJ)
Self-reported offending
2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020
Basic Enforcement Provision (BVH)
Police registrations, incidents, suspects
2010 to 2021
AuraH
HALT juveniles
2005 to 2020
Research and Policy Judicial Documentation Database (OBJD)
Convicted offenders and sanctions imposed by the Public Prosecution Service and the courts
2000 to 2020
UNODC
Suspects and convicts
2008 to 2019
Judicial Verdicts
Qualitative information on cybercrime cases
2010, 2015 and 2019
These sources are discussed in greater detail in the Methodology appendix of MJC 2020.
Contributors to the MJC
Scientific Research and Data Centre (WODC)
Statistics Netherlands (CBS)
National Police (MJC 2020)
Periodic advice is given by an independent, scientific advisory committee during the creation of the JCM.
The WODC also investigates the possibilities for methodological innovations to provide deeper insights into trends in juvenile crime. An overview of recent methodological in-depth studies.
To administer adequate criminal justice policy responses to juvenile crime, knowledge about developments within this phenomenon is needed. A methodological in-depth study was conducted to investigate to what extent focus groups can provide a valuable contribution to the Juvenile Crime Monitor. Hereto, literature was collectively examined, and pilot focus groups were performed. It was found that focus groups are particularly suitable for investigating opinions, values, and beliefs, and less suitable for identifying factual changes. Therefore, solely based on the results of focus groups, no definitive statements can be made about current developments in juvenile crime. However, focus groups can provide a relevant contribution to interpreting developments and further describing phenomena. They can also provide input for follow-up research.
Lise Prop, Kirti Zeijlmans, and André van der Laan
Since the introduction of adolescent criminal law in 2014, judges have received discretion to apply juvenile or adult criminal law provisions to offenders between the ages of 16 to 23. This implies that judges can apply adult criminal law provisions to 16- and 17-year-olds (article 77b of the Criminal Code) and juvenile criminal law provisions to 18- to 23-year-olds (article 77c of the Criminal Code).
It is relevant for policy makers to know how often adolescent criminal law provisions are applied , but also for social organizations such as UNICEF and Defense for Children, and important in the context of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, the application of adolescent criminal law is not directly registered in judicial registration systems. To identify cases wherein 16- to 23-year-olds were subject to adolescent criminal justice provisions, so-called search rules and queries for searching judicial registrations were used. The first part of the study examined the accuracy of these queries from the WODC and the Judiciary Council. It was found that these search rules and queries are insufficiently adequate. Therefore, more direct registration of adolescent criminal law applications in verdict and judiciary registration systems is recommended.
Read the report on: the application of adolescent criminal law provisions among 16- to 23-year-olds (available only in Dutch).
Additionally, not much is known about the application of adolescent criminal law provisions in general. For instance, little is known about the characteristics of 16- and 17-year-old offenders who are treated according to adult criminal law, and little is known about judges’ motivations for this atypical application of the law. These topics will be further examined in the second part of this research, which will be published at the beginning of 2024.
Nikolaj Tollenaar, Josja Rokven, D. Macro, Rik Beerthuizen, and André van der Laan
This study investigated whether it was possible to develop a machine learning (ML) model to classify police registrations in the Basic Enforcement Provision (BVH) that relate to cyber or digitized crime. The goal was to estimate the extent of these online crimes in the 2016 BVH registration, using that model. The background characteristics of known suspects in registrations of cyber and digitized crime were also described. The research focused on registrations of three types of cybercrime (hacking, ransomware, and DDoS attacks) and five types of digitized crime (online threats, online stalking, online defamation/slander/insult, online identity fraud, and online buying and selling fraud).
