Photo credits: Robert Anasch via Unsplash
On the 25th of May, one of JASON Institute’s final events of this academic year took place. The Activities Committee organised an interesting lecture and subsequent Q&A session on Organised Crime in the Netherlands. The lecture was provided by two interesting speakers: ms. Alexandra Jones, from the Dutch National Police, and Dr. Peter Klerks, a special advisor to the Dutch Public Prosecution office.
Ms. Jones opened the lecture with a valuable introduction to the history of organised crime and the developments since the 17th century. Furthermore, she dived into the problem of organised crime in the Netherlands as it has become more and more prevalent in Dutch cities and in the news. After a thorough explanation of how globalisation influenced the transnational aspect of organised crime, she specifically looked at how the Dutch youth is increasingly involved and becomes part of this circuit. While organised crime is a global problem, ms. Jones stressed the importance of local solutions to address it. Yet, the solutions in one city are difficult to translate into another, which shows how the problem requires a context specific approach.
During the second part, Dr. Klerks shared his insights as an academic working for several government institutions, like the National Police, the Police Academy and currently the Public Prosecution Office. He provided insights on working with the police as an academic and the tools he had developed including social network analysis, crime scripting and early open-source intelligence. Dr. Klerks shared his experiences in watching policing develop over the course of his career and the importance of collaboration between policing agents, technical specialists and academics despite cultural differences.
After the interesting insights provided by the speakers, the floor was given to the audience who posed many critical questions. This sparked a lively discussion between the speakers and the audience, which was the true intent of this event.
During this event both the organising committee members and the audience learned a lot from the openness of the speakers. Therefore, we would like to thank ms. Jones and Dr. Klerks for their time and willingness to share their knowledge. Finally, we would also like to thank our audience for their interest in our events during this year and who make it possible for JASON to create these activities.