De Universiteit Leiden zet in op de versterking van de ondersteuning voor onderzoekers en onderzoeksgroepen bij extern gefinancierde onderzoeksprojecten.

One perspective, one cell, one outlook on life: what are we all prisoners of? That’s the question Vrij Nederland put to various experts, including Joni Reef, Assistant Professor and Research Fellow at the Department of Criminology.

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

Adults are more likely to reoffend after a short prison sentence than comparable adults with a non-custodial sentence, Leiden University research shows. This is true for the likelihood and extent of repeat crime.

Prisoners who are visited regularly by family or friends are less likely to be reconvicted in the short term than inmates who rarely or never receive visits. Visits should therefore be encouraged and facilitated, according to PhD candidate Maria Berghuis, who will defend her doctoral thesis on 23 June…

Cuts in the prison system threaten to be at the expense of security, including that of society, writes university lecturer Esther van Ginneken in an opinion piece in Dutch newspaper NRC.

Dutch political parties have presented their own 'solutions' to make society 'safer'. How do the party positions compare with scientific research on crime reduction?

Prisoners who have little or no contact with the outside world are more prone to reoffend. What makes visits so important?

Why do violent incidents occur in prisons? And how do staff respond? Assistant Professor Esther van Ginneken will use a grant from the NWO Vidi Talent Programme to conduct research into these and other questions. She intends to make use of virtual reality.

Ten years ago, a new reward system was introduced in Dutch prisons: the only way prisoners could earn extra ‘freedoms’ was through good behaviour. Jan Maarten Elbers concludes that this system does little to encourage behavioural change and can even be counterproductive.

Prisoners deserve better professional support when preparing to return to society. PhD candidate Amanda Pasma: ‘You can’t imprison everyone for life. Society will have to give prisoners a second chance.’

If you end up in prison somewhere in the world, the chances are you won’t be allowed to vote. If it were up to researchers Tom Theuns and Andrei Poama, rather than disenfranchise felons, we would oblige them to vote. That would be a better way to express democratic values.

The Dutch Senate recently voted on a ban on imposing community service after physical violence towards public service providers. Courts are no longer allowed to issue these sentences in case of extreme violence and vice crimes. The punishment for these crimes will be an enforced prison sentence. But…

Labour market reintegration: what is working and what could be done better? These questions were at the centre of Dutch BNR Nieuwsradio's podcast ‘Werkverkenners’. The podcast makers interviewed Anke Ramakers, Assistant Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, for answers…

For a successful return to society, incarcerated individuals must work on their reentry during their sentence. Not all such individuals receive good reentry support. This is according to a report by Leiden criminologists.

Palestinian national Abu Zubaydah was captured by the CIA in March 2002 and has remained in detention ever since, without any form of trial. Leiden professor Helen Duffy is doing all she can to secure his release or a fair trial. Her hopes now lie on international pressure and the UN Working Group on…

Many of you are finishing your degree at LUC this year, and are probably starting to look into MSc/MA programmes. By now you probably know that there are MANY different programmes out there (way more than BSc/BA programmes)…

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

Poama and Theuns co-wrote an opinion piece on why voting in prison should be mandatory worldwide. It appeared on National Interest's website on February 12.

Op woensdagmiddag 17 mei vindt een groot evenement plaats, waar alle Leidse onderzoekers kunnen kennismaken met de interdisciplinaire stimuleringsprogramma’s om samenwerkingsmogelijkheden te verkennen. Waarom is dat ook voor jou interessant? We geven vier redenen.

Roughly arrested and subjected to extreme isolation. Using his experience, expert Jason Bhugwandass spoke to 50 young people who have spent time on Zikos wards (‘very intense, short-term observation and stabilisation wards’). He concluded that they’re ‘mostly locked up’ and leave ‘even more traumatised’…

For the first time, research has been conducted on how the health of detained persons prior to their detention differs from that of non-detainees and to what extent health problems change over the period: from before and after their detention.

PhD defence

Compared to suspects with the Dutch nationality, foreign nationals face court proceedings more often and are given a prison sentence more often than Dutch suspects. This was the outcome of research conducted by Hilde Wermink, Assistant Professor at Leiden Law School, and American sociologist Michael…

PhD defence

Door aangescherpte verlofregels kunnen gedetineerden niet met verlof, terwijl dat hun re-integratie bevordert.

Diversity

Lecture, China Seminar

PhD defence

On Wednesday 5 March 2025 Casey Golomski (University of New Hampshire) will give a talk about his book God's Waiting Room: Racial Reckoning at Life's End (Templeton Press).

Lecture, Unfolding Finitudes

On this page we gather reading suggestions and sources about ChatGPT.

Workshop

Lecture, Tuesday Talks: Science Insights

How do people become involved in terrorist organisations? Liesbeth van der Heide sought the answer to this question in a Malian prison, where she interviewed terrorists in a tiny cell. She discovered that the will to survive and social context are often more decisive than individual ideological convictions.…

What does it mean to be in a Dutch prison? What is true about the prejudices about being in jail? Criminologist Marieke Liem has released a podcast on Dutch national broadcaster NPO Radio 1: Hotel met tralies.

Prison and student life are worlds apart. But in the Learning Behind Bars project, Leiden criminology students get the chance to study inside prison walls with people incarcerated there.

In de maanden maart, april en mei organiseerde het programma Transparantie in Informatie, van de ministeries van Economische Zaken en Klimaat (EZK) en Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit (LNV), gesprekken over de veranderopgave naar een Open Departement. De sessies hadden als doel om een eerlijk en…

Students stream into the lecture hall, handing in their mobile phones at the door. Once everyone’s seated, silence descends and all eyes turn to the large screen at the front of the lecture hall. A live connection has been set up with the prison where Marco is a long-term inmate. Today, the students…

Why do innocent people sometimes spend years in prison? EUREX is a registry of miscarriages of justice in Europe that ultimately led to exonerations. The aim is to prevent such mistakes being made in future. One of the initiators is Leiden legal psychologist Linda Geven.