Marieke Liem

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Leiden University

Meer dan ooit staat de herintreding van zedendelinquenten in de schijnwerpers. Zedendelinquenten zorgen voor maatschappelijk onbehagen, zeker wanneer kinderen slachtoffer zijn. Het doel van dit Position Paper is tweeledig: In de eerste plaats beogen we de huidige stand van zaken van herintreding van zedendelinquenten in kaart te brengen. Ten tweede...

Homicide statistics are often used as an indicator for violent crime more generally. In this work, we evaluate the empirical support for this convention in a Western European context, specifically the Netherlands. Using data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and from the Dutch Homicide Monitor, we compare homicide rates to rates of other violent cr...

Aim This paper aims to better understand the relationship between homicide and other public health outcomes, by studying their trends over time. Subject and methods Research in both criminology and public health has long identified that crime and violence tend to cluster together with adverse phenomena in the social and health domains. However, su...

This study examines homicide trends in seven European countries – Denmark, Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden and Switzerland – all of which manifested a substantial drop in homicide mortality between 1990 and 2016. By using data from the European Homicide Monitor, a coding scheme created to enable cross-country comparisons, combin...

Over the past decade, a growing body of literature has emerged under the umbrella of narrative criminology. We trace the origins of this field to narrative scholarship in the social sciences more broadly and review the recent history of criminological engagement in this field. We then review contemporary developments, paying particular attention to...

In 1985, Goldstein developed a framework to capture the relationships between drugs and violence in the United States, laying a foundation for future research on drug-related violence. Since then, the rise of synthetic drugs, including in Europe, and the introduction of online drug transactions have drastically changed illicit drug markets and asso...

Background: Young people with childhood adversity (CA) tend to show altered autobiographical memory processing, such as reduced access to details of specific positive events, which may represent a potential mechanism through which CA increases mental health risk. Although friendship support is known to improve mental health outcomes in this populat...

This paper examines the meaning of violence in contemporary Western societies. Scholars have argued that in contemporary Western societies, the concept is expanding toward a broader understanding of violence, beyond its “traditional” usage in the context of crime and war. The current paper aims to generate empirical evidence that speaks to this que...

Firearm violence is a serious issue in Europe, yet the validity of existing theoretical approaches to weapon use in violent encounters have not been explicitly tested in the European context. This study tested existing hypotheses on weapon use and lethality – the Adversary Effects Hypothesis, the Physical Strength Hypothesis, and the Social Distanc...

Recent years witnessed an increase in attention to femicide, or the killing of women because of their gender. Prior empirical studies have drawn attention to the prevalence of female homicide victimization, but most have been unable to give a detailed overview of the specific contexts in which women are killed, and to what extent female homicide vi...

In July 2024 the long established and trusted European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) will cease to exist and will evolve to the new European Drugs Agency (EUDA). In response to the ever diversifying, innovative and complex drug phenomena, the EUDA will open with considerably more powers, new methodological tools, and a pro...

Homicide as the most serious form of lethal violence has always represented an important research focus in criminology. Much of the existing research, however, is based on aggregated homicide data and is limited to macrolevel analyses. The European Homicide Monitor (EHM) is an initiative promoting standardized international data collection, with th...

Firearm violence in Europe is a complex phenomenon; it manifests itself in various contexts and circumstances, involving different types of victims and perpetrators. Yet, previous research does not account for this complexity and focuses mainly on lethal firearm violence alone. In this study, we use 243 cases of lethal shootings (2015–2021) and 807...

Drugs are generally considered a prominent factor contributing to violent behavior (Caulkins and Kleiman 2011; Collins 1990; EMCDDA and Europol 2016; Ousey and Lee 2007; Varano et al. 2004; Varano and Kuhns 2017). One of the ways in which drugs and violence are linked, is through drugs circulation, which has impacted many communities in various reg...

Article available Open-Access through the doi (above). This Research Note outlines a novel approach to studying the role of ethnicity in lethal police incidents (LPI). We take data from the Netherlands, between 2016 and 2020, to show—first—that the representation of individuals with minority ethnic backgrounds in LPI is 350% of what would be expe...

This presentation describes the patterns and trends of homicide clearance in three European countries: Finland, France, and the Netherlands. It presents the first findings of a follow-up project on homicide clearance in Western Europe (Liem et al., 2019).

Detailed, comparative research on firearm violence in Europe is rare. Using data from the European Homicide Monitor, this paper presents the prevalence and characteristics of firearm homicides in Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland between 2001 and 2016. Furthermore, we compare firearm to non-firearm homicides to assess the de...

Homicide rates are often used as an indicator of levels of crime. The reasons for this are both practical and conceptual. Practically speaking, homicide statistics tend to be more reliable than statistics for other forms of crime. Conceptually speaking, homicide and other forms of crime are often considered to be related: homicide is seen as the “t...

Dit handboek bespreekt de belangrijkste aspecten van slachtofferbeleid en geeft een uniek overzicht van relevante wetenschappelijke en praktijkgerichte inzichten op dit gebied. De titel behandelt uiteenlopende onderwerpen die essentieel zijn bij het begrijpen en doorgronden van de positie van slachtoffers. Hierbij komen ook internationale aspecten...

Book Review of Nordic Homicide in Deep Time

In this study, we aim to bring together and synthesise information from a range of sources so as to examine and discuss the prevalence and nature of gun violence in the Netherlands between 2015 and 2019. We also examine and discuss the types of firearm used in these violent acts, their origins and their routes to the Netherlands.

In this project we examine whether homicide ‘clusters together’ with other adverse health outcomes in the Netherlands, focusing on child mortality, suicide, sexual risk behavior, and substance abuse. We expected moderate-to-strong correlations between homicide and the other adverse health phenomena (hypothesis 1). Further, we expected that these co...

In this study, we examine how the two facets of the fear of terrorism—the affective and behavioural fears—shift over time. To this end, we use a unique longitudinal data set of a representative sample of 755 Dutch respondents, recruited from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences Panel in the time period between November 2017 an...

In this study, we examine how the two facets of the fear of terrorism—the affective and behavioural fears—shift over time. To this end, we use a unique longitudinal data set of a representative sample of 755 Dutch respondents, recruited from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences panel, in the time period between November 2017 an...

In this chapter, we take a closer look at the relationship between mental disorder and homicide where we critically evaluate to what extent mental disorder is causally related to homicide. Based on this review our general take-home message is that proportionally, few homicides are committed by individuals suffering from a mental disorder. Yet, indi...

Despite the fact that the issue of illegal hand grenades received ample public attention, a number of questions surrounding this phenomenon remain: For what kind of crimes are hand grenades used as weapons? What do we know about the victims and perpetrator s of these incidents? Where do the hand grenades come from? Whilst anecdotal reports by the m...

As part of a panel on Project TARGET, we presented some of the initial findings of our case study on the impact of firearms trafficking on gun violence in the Netherlands. This presentation was presented (online) on 10 September 2021, for the Eurocrim 2021 conference.

The past decade has seen a substantial growth of scholarly work on European homicide, combined with initiatives to systematically gather homicide data on a pan-European level. In this contribution, I will reflect on these initiatives, in particular on the construction of the European Homicide Monitor (EHM) and how it relates to other initiatives, s...

The Western homicide drop is a known fact, but the reasons behind the drop have so far mainly focused on macro explanations. In this study, we argue that to understand the homicide drop, it is necessary to first explore whether the drop is general or specific. We do this by examining the subtypes of homicide together with perpetrator and victim dem...

In 2019 waarschuwde de NCTV in de vijftigste editie van het Dreigingsbeeld Terrorisme Nederland voor het potentiële gevaar dat zou uitgaan van kinderen die opgroeien in een jihadistisch milieu (NCTV, 2019). De gedachte was dat kinderen uit een gezin waarin in ieder geval één van de ouders jihadistische denkbeelden aanhangt, op de langere termijn de...

In recent years, there have been growing concerns both at home and abroad about children growing up in jihadist families. It is estimated that in the Netherlands, there are several hundred jihadist couples and dozens of families of which at least one parent adheres to jihadist ideas (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security [NCTV], 20...

Homicide engenders broad moral concerns in society, and its aftermath can be understood as a barometer for criminal justice policy. Of all homicides committed, however, only some lead to arrest, to prosecution and ultimately to conviction in court. So far, no study has assessed the entire flow of homicide cases through the criminal justice system b...

Homicide is generally considered the most serious of all crimes and according to this line of reasoning, constitutes the "tip of the iceberg" of underlying crime. As such, homicide is frequently used as an indicator of the level of violence in cross-national and historical studies. The same could be said for drug-related homicide, specifically. Man...

Since 2012, thousands of individuals have traveled from Western countries to join jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq. While much has been written about these individuals, only sparse attention has been paid to the social environment of these jihadist travelers and, more specific, the role of family members in their radicalization, joining and return...

Background Higher availability of firearms has been connected to higher rates of interpersonal violence in previous studies. Yet, those studies have focused mainly on the United States, or used aggregated international data to study firearm violence. Whether those aggregated findings are applicable to understanding the phenomenon in continental Eur...

Over the past decade, a growing body of literature has emerged under the umbrella of narrative criminology. We trace the origins of this field to narrative scholarship in the social sciences more broadly and review the recent history of criminological engagement in this field. We then review contemporary developments, paying particular attention to...

BOOK REVIEW: Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence – and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Street, by Thomas Abt.

This systematic review examined the evidence on factors influencing the flow of homicide, from suspicious death to imprisonment. Bibliographic databases and thesis portals were searched. The total number of hits was 15,986, of which 15,830 were irrelevant, 35 did not include a quantitative sample, 26 did not focus on homicide, 18 did not present fl...

The likelihood that homicides lead to arrest, conviction, and incarceration of the perpetrators varies widely across world regions. To date, we lack a comprehensive framework that can explain the differences in how homicide cases are processed in different jurisdictions, and how this knowledge can be used to hold perpetrators to account, to advance...

Deze studie beschrijft de trend in slachtofferschap van moord in Nederland in de periode 1992-2016. Hierbij is gebruik gemaakt van de Dutch Homicide Monitor. De bevindingen laten zien dat het moordcijfer sinds de jaren negentig aan het dalen is. Deze daling is het grootst onder mannelijke en vrouwelijke slachtoffers in de leeftijd van 20 tot en met...

Het illegaal gebruik van handgranaten heeft de afgelopen jaren flink in de publieke belangstelling gestaan. Er is echter weinig bekend over de aard en omvang van deze incidenten. Dit onderzoek tracht deze lacune te vullen.

It has been argued that the Internet presents numerous new opportunities for crime, including homicide. So far, empirical scholarly research in this domain is rather limited. In order to discover how perpetrators have used the Internet in the homicides they have committed, we conducted an international newspaper search (2006–2017). Based on this an...

Terrorism only poses a small risk to people but tends to be a major source of public fear. Through fear, terrorism has far-reaching impli-cations for public governance. ln this paper we look at trust in government as a potential mitigating factor of fear of terrorism. We discern between calculative trust, based on analytical assessment of previous...

The added value of criminological perspectives in terrorism research. Xxx Terrorism could be regarded as an extreme type of (violent) criminal behaviour. Against this background, there is much to gain if criminological attention would be extended to terrorism. In this overview, the authors describe how and to what extent criminological theories may...

In vergelijking met hun tegenhangers in de vrije maatschappij hebben gedetineerden een sterk verhoogd risico om te overlijden door zelfdoding. Ze vertonen vaak al risicofactoren wanneer ze de gevangenis binnenkomen, en het gevangenschap zelf kan hen extra kwetsbaar maken. Hoewel bepaalde aspecten van het gevangenisleven suïcidepreventie kunnen verg...

This study investigates the relationship between terrorism and interpersonal violence by conducting cross-national analyses on the effects of terrorism mortality rates on homicide rates. Results show that terrorism appears to be robustly and positively associated with homicide. This finding is based on the calculation of a series of independently p...

Purpose The reintegration of high-profile ex-offenders—including homicide offenders, pedophiles, and terrorists—frequently receives great political and public attention. This raises several important questions: how do such offenders reintegrate into society after their release? What is the impact of their prison sentence and media attention on life...

Intimate partner homicide Intimate partner homicide (IPH) constitutes one of the most prevalent types of homicide. This study aims to assess the nature and prevalence of intimate partner homicide in the Netherlands in the period 2009-2014. In doing so, we make use of police data, court data, and media articles. Findings show that IPH occurs 29 time...

In 2012, intelligence and security services issued warnings about Dutch nationals who were leaving the Netherlands to join jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq. In the following years, the number of Dutch foreign fighters increased significantly; from a few in 2012 to approximately 300 in 2018 (AIVD, 2018). Recently, a considerable number of (academic...

In het rapport wordt ingegaan op de volgende vraag: wat is de rol en betekenis van familieleden bij processen van voorbereiding, uitreizen naar en terugkeren uit een buitenlands strijdgebied waar jihadistische strijdgroepen actief zijn? Daarnaast hebben we in dit rapport gereflecteerd op de interventie-mogelijkheden van familieleden om de risico’s...

De bijdragen aan dit liber amicorum illustreren Frans’ veelzijdigheid als mens en als academicus en bestrijken een breed terrein. Zonder aan deze veelzijdigheid afbreuk te willen doen, zijn de bijdragen ter wille van de leesbaarheid van deze bundel (hier en daar enigszins willekeurig) door de redactie verdeeld over een vijftal hoofdrubrieken, te we...

Het is onduidelijk of en in hoeverre de aanslagen in nabijgelegen landen ook van invloed zijn op de risicobeleving van de Nederlandse bevolking Niet alleen aanslagen in buurlanden kunnen van invloed zijn op de risicoperceptie in Nederland,1 maar ook het, door de overheid ingeschaalde, dreigingsniveau. De vraag rijst of en in hoeverre het relatief l...

The term “lone actor” has been applied to a variety of violent individuals, including jihadists, right-wing extremists, school shooters, and others whose crimes were ideologically motivated and generated much societal impact. It may be argued, however, that such a classification of this rare subset of violent offenders is an artificial one, based o...

Background: Drugs can act as facilitators for all types of violence, including drug-related homicide (DRH). Addressing this phenomenon is not only of importance given the severity of a homicide event and its high costs on society, but also because DRH has the potential to act as a valuable indicator or proxy of wider drug-related violent crime. Ho...

This study provides an overview of homicide clearance in four West European countries: Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Using data from the European Homicide Monitor, employing similar definitions and uniform coding schemes, this study allowed for unique crosscountry comparisons in factors influencing differences in homicide cleara...

The literature on domestic violence will often treat homicide as its most extreme outcome. The reality is more nuanced, with many domestic homicides occurring within a history of abusive behaviour. This book offers a much-needed synthesis of the literature on domestic homicide, covering its history; the theories supporting it; its various forms suc...

Following up on the findings of providing an overview of DRH data, this report outlines a proposal for long-term EU-level monitoring of DRH. The report recommends to explore the possibilities of including DHR variables into the already existing European Homicide Monitor framework.

The term "Lone Actor" has been applied to a variety of violent individuals who are thought to act out of ideological motivations using terrorist tactics. So far, much of the research is U.S.-based. There is an empirical vacuum of Lone Actor violence in Europe and a conceptual gap in how these acts may be understood as a variation of homicidal behav...

Illicit drugs continue to be a profitable area for criminal organizations operating within the EU. Drug use and drug markets can act as facilitators for all types of violence, which could ultimately lead to homicide. Yet, drug-related homicide (DRH) has not been monitored. The development of a drug-related homicide data collection is necessary to s...

This presentation reflects preliminary findings from the European Homicide Monitor in the period 2009-2014 in three European countries: Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It provides a detailed overview of the case, victim and perpetrator characteristics of intimate partner homicide.

Drug-related homicide (DRH) has the potential to act as a valuable indicator of wider drug-related crime. Yet DRH remains a knowledge gap within this broader field of study. Against this backdrop, ISGA researchers are critically assessing current homicide data sources in order to develop a proposal for long-term EU-level monitoring of DRH. This pre...

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a copycat effect – established within the field of suicide studies – may manifest itself in terrorist suicide attacks, and takes an exploratory approach in evaluating the prospect of incorporating open-data resources in future counter-terrorism research. This paper explores a possible 'copycat effect' in...

Europe does not have a long tradition of studying the trends, patterns and explanations of homicide. Recent initiatives, however, have begun to systematically address homicide and homicide research in Europe. This contribution builds on these new developments, providing an overview of contemporary homicide research in Europe, by addressing (1) an o...

Over the last decades, the number of prisoners serving life sentences has increased tremendously. Even though a proportion is serving a sentence of life without parole, the majority of lifers will at one point be released to society. We know, however, very little about what happens to those sentenced with life imprisonment after release. As they ha...

In recent decades, the number of long-term detainees held worldwide has increased significantly. Academics and policy makers have begun to challenge the widespread use and effectiveness of such severe sentences, however. This article aims to shed light on the role of human rights in imposing and executing long-term custodial sentences. There appear...

Uitgaansgeweld, seksueel geweld, huiselijk geweld…een samenleving zonder een vorm van gewelddadig gedrag is haast ondenkbaar. De wetenschap is dan ook al lange tijd bezig met geweld en geweldsbeheersing. Een belangrijk werkveld, maar het ontbrak aan een overzicht van wetenschappelijke en praktijkgerichte inzichten. Deze uitgave heeft voor u de bela...

In Nederland komen gemiddeld 152 mensen per jaar om het leven door moord of doodslag. Dit hoofdstuk geeft een overzicht van de aard en omvang van fataal geweld in Nederland. Na een korte achtergrond te schetsen van eerder onderzoek naar moord en doodslag, geven we een overzicht van alle moorden die plaatsvonden in de periode 2009-2014. Hierbij word...

In de ISGA-2016 workshop over " herintreders" wordt aan de hand van de recent gepubliceerde studie "Op Vrije Voeten" (Universiteit Leiden) stilgestaan bij de herintredingsprocessen van maatschappelijk gevoelige ex-gedetineerden. Jaarlijks keren zo'n 33.000 ex-gedetineerden terug in de samenleving. Slechts een klein deel daarvan wordt in meer of min...

One out of every ten prisoners in the United States is serving a life sentence—roughly 130,000 people. While some have been sentenced to life in prison without parole, the majority of prisoners serving ‘life’ will be released back into society. But what becomes of those people who reenter the everyday world after serving life in prison? In After L...

Chapter five describes in depth the factors peculiar to long-term imprisonment, how the interviewees coped with these conditions and how they managed to adapt to (solitary) confinement over the years. The chapter discusses how lifers dealt with Sykes’ pains of imprisonment. This chapter goes deeper into what differentiates the long-term prisoners’...

Chapter ten delves deeper into the factors the interviewees mentioned as key to staying out. These included aging out of crime, a healthy fear for the conditions of parole, and self-efficacy, or having a sense of choice and control over one’s life. Non-incarcerated interviewees, as opposed to re-incarcerated individuals, reflected a strong sense of...

Chapter eleven concludes by exploring the boundaries of two main theoretical models: Life-course theories and theories of cognitive transformation, in explaining success and failure among these lifers. The majority of the interviewed lifers, in a strict sense, desisted from crime, but still experienced great difficulty adjusting to life outside of...

Chapter seven explores the initial impacts of re-entering a world these lifers left many years ago. The chapter highlights specific roadblocks to re-entry. These include the ‘felon label’, the implications stigma, labeling, and the widespread availability of criminal background checks. These factors prevent lifers from obtaining housing and employm...