Dutch intolerance of child soldiers and corrupt dockers: unspeakable narratives on organized crime in the Netherlands

Activity: Lecture / PresentationAcademic

Description

‘Cheese, coke and murderers. How the Netherlands made the mafia big through naïve drug policy’, is what the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel headlined in reaction to the murders of the criminal lawyer Derk Wiersum and well-known crime reporter and confidant of a key witness, Peter R. de Vries, as well as the death threat made to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Maybe the Netherlands is the first real ‘original’ Narco state, having had 50 years of illegal drug industry development, attracting transnational organized crime groups that advanced themselves into large-scale, corporate-like drug-syndicates. As the Dutch transport sector continues to expand, it simultaneously provides opportunities for organized crime. Especially the Port of Rotterdam plays a key role in the international drug trade. There, young delinquents traffic cocaine by order of drug syndicates. Also, port employees, or ‘dockers’, are often corrupted into such trafficking too. These dockers and youngsters are seen as toughened criminals, but are they though? What if they are also victims, instead of (only) offenders? These questions shall explore be in conceptual-empirical detail.
Period23 Sept 2022
Event titleEuropean Society of Criminology EUROCRIM 2022 conference Malaga
Event typeConference
LocationMalaga , SpainShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational