Criminal- and criminological issues from an Interaction between Legal Systems’ perspective
Last Thursday, the April edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars took place. This well attended seminar featured criminal- and criminological issues from an Interaction between Legal Systems’ perspective, with presentations from Adriano Martufi and Marco Stam.
The first presentation was given by Adriano Martufi on “The cross-border dimension of social rehabilitation: interest of the State or right of the individual”. Martufi, who has been working as an Assistant-Professor in Criminal Law and Procedure at Leiden Law School since February, explained how his current research focuses on the impact of EU criminal law on the imposition and administration of penalties at the national level. The Europeanization of criminal law is affecting the relationship between the state and offender, which can lead to fragmentation of the respective legal frameworks in Member States and the multiplication of actors governing punishment in the cross-border setting. This poses challenges for the traditional understanding of punishment as a state-individual relationship, particularly influencing the aim of ‘social rehabilitation’. The emergence of a fundamental rights-based understanding of this concept could lead to two dimensions of rehabilitation, which will prove increasingly influential in the future relations between EU law and domestic jurisdictions.
The second presentation was given by Marco Stam on “The effects of welfare receipt on crime: A regression discontinuity and instrumental variable approach”. This research, which he undertakes together with Marike Knoef and Anke Ramakers, takes on an Interaction between Legal Systems’ point of view, being the outcome of a collaboration between the institutes of Economy and Criminology. Most of the research on welfare receipt and crime has been conducted in cross-sectional and macro-level studies, mainly focussing on the welfare system in the USA and stating that welfare receipt reduces criminal behaviour. Stam explained how this research focuses on the exogenous variation in Dutch welfare policy, by examining applicants under the age of 27 who have to endure a mandatory four-week period upon applying for welfare benefits. During this period, they are not eligible for benefits and have to actively search for work. Using individual-level administrative data on the entire Dutch population around this age, an instrumental variable model with a first-stage regression discontinuity design was estimated. Results show that welfare receipt reduces the monthly probability of committing crime from 0.50% to 0.27% for men and from 0.14% to 0.04% for women.
The ILS Lunch Seminar of May will take on a slightly different format, as we have the honor of receiving Jason Beckfield, Professor of Sociology at Harvard University who will give a presentation on “The Welfare State Meets European Integration: The Place of ECJ Jurisprudence in Retrenchment and Convergence”. This special seminar will be jointly organized by ILS and the research program Reform of Social Legislation, and will take place on Wednesday 23 May from 12.00 hrs until 13.00 hrs in KOG B0.13.
Would you like to present yourself and your research? Do not hesitate to contact our ILS student assistant! More information on ILS 2.0 can be found on our website.