An Nuytiens

• Senior Researcher at Emmaüs Jeugdzorg Antwerpen

This article analyses the qualitative findings of doctoral research on a sample of 210 young offenders who were transferred to Adult Court in 1999, 2000 and 2001. The results give an insight into the impact of juvenile transfer on a specific subgroup of participants, now aged between 30 and 40 years, allowing a critical evaluation of their pathways...

The experience of imprisonment is different for women and men: women suffer more, and they also suffer in more distinctive ways. For mothers in prison, the major pains of imprisonment are related to their motherhood status; the so-called maternal pains of imprisonment. Studies on those who have experienced motherhood in prison focus primarily on fe...

This article draws on a study of 38 male and female care-leavers in Belgium (age 21–66 years). Life history interviews were conducted to investigate how they experienced being in care, how they perceived the impact of this on their later life course, and how they reflected on shifts in their narratives as their lives progressed. The results shed li...

It is our great pleasure to introduce the inaugural issue of Criminological Encounters, a new international, interdisciplinary, double blind peer-reviewed, digital, and open-access journal in the field of criminology. With this new venue for discussion, we aim to facilitate critical dialogue between scholars of criminology and interlocutors from re...

In comparative studies, the Belgian juvenile justice system has always been mentioned as one of the most welfare oriented in Europe. Even though in the last few decades several Western European countries have abandoned welfarism and have taken a punitive turn, Belgium does not seem to be heading in that direction. Also after the “modernisation” of...

In this article, the authors discuss the preliminary results of a Belgian research on 210 young offenders transferred to Adult Court in 1999, 2000 and 2001. The long-term judicial pathways of these youngsters, now aged between 30 and 40, are explored. Drawing on the criminal records and detention records of the sample, judicial pathways into adulth...

Deze bijdrage handelt over Roma-meisjes die wegens een als misdrijf omschreven feit (MOF) voor de jeugdrechtbank verschijnen. Onderzoek heeft aangetoond dat jeugd- beschermingsactoren deze meisjes als onbenaderbaar en als onbehandelbaar beschouwen. Dit resulteert in een tweesporenbeleid op de jeugdrechtbank: geen interventie of plaatsing in een ges...

Because the gendered pathways perspective was developed and tested primarily in the United States, the applicability of the model in European contexts remains questionable. Also, it is unclear how adult-onset female offenders fit the pathways perspective. In this article we explore the life histories and the pathways to crime and prison of female p...

This paper examines some results of a research on female offenders’ life histories and pathways to prison in Belgium. Women’s pathways into crime will be presented and the connection of these pathways to their life histories will be explored. The study reveals that the greater part of the research population are adult-onset offenders. The authors a...

Het verrichten van kwalitatief onderzoek in het algemeen, en etnografisch onderzoek in het bijzonder, kan een emotionele impact hebben op alle betrokken partijen. De term etnografie is oorspronkelijk afkomstig uit de antropologie en verwijst naar de beschrij-vende studie van stammen of volkeren teneinde een andere cultuur te begrijpen. Het is de Po...

Several Western European juvenile justice systems have become more punitive in the last few decades. This article explores whether the Belgian juvenile justice system, traditionally one of the most welfare oriented in Europe, has taken a punitive turn as well. An analysis of the recent amendment of the most punitive element in the Belgian juvenile...

The transfer of youths from the juvenile to the criminal court was common in large parts of the world throughout the past century. Right from the start, judicial waiver mechanisms to remove very serious cases from the juvenile court formed part of the juvenile justice system in many countries. It was and is still viewed by many as a ‘safety valve’...

In Belgium the juvenile judge can exceptionally refer a juvenile offender aged 16 years or over to the Public Prosecutor with the intent of prosecuting and sentencing the minor before the adult court. As in the UK and the USA, this transfer mechanism is increasingly pushed forward as a preferential solution for serious juvenile offenders. With this...

In Belgium, juvenile offenders under the age of 18 are brought before the juvenile judge. By exception, however, the juvenile judge can decide to refer a young delin- quent aged over 16 to the public prosecutor with the intent of prosecuting and sen- tencing the minor before Adult Court. This mechanism is called 'transfer', 'waiver' or 'referral'....