Crime and criminalization

Description: Radicalization is often viewed as an identity story. By the use of a qualitative study I plan to interview professionals and participants who returned from Syria. The aim of the study is to grasp a better understanding on radicalization and deradicalization/disengagement, and what jihad means for the participants of the study. This research is conducted from a psychoanalytical point of view in which the relationship between identity and religiion will be clarified.
Promoter(s): Reitkse Meganck
Researcher(s): Amar El-Omari
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences
Period of time: 2021 - 2027

Description: Persons from migrant and ethnic minority groups are relatively overrepresented in forensic mental health care, however, it remains unclear how they recover and desist from crime. The Good Lives Model, as a leading strengths-based rehabilitation framework, is regarded as a promising avenue. One could wonder though how forensic service users who identify themselves as MEM prioritize and conceptualize the Good Lives conceptions. In this study, we place MEM forensic service users’ perspectives on their rehabilitation needs and how these needs can be fulfilled (i.e. Good Lives conceptions) center stage. Additionally, we study forensic service providers’ needs towards MEM rehabilitation in forensic mental health services while identifying currently implemented promising practices. Next, these results will be validated by international experts in culturally sensitive mental health care and/or forensic mental health care, in order to formulate policy recommendations.
Promoter(s): Freya Vander Laenen, Stijn Van de Velde
Researcher(s): Marjolein De Pau
Faculty: Faculty of Law and Criminology
Period: 2021 - 2025

Description: The needs of people from migrant and ethnic minority groups (MEM) in a forensic psychiatric context have, despite their overrepresentation, long been overlooked. Contrary to a large body of evidence in regular mental health care, it remains unclear how MEM forensic service users recover and desist from crime, or how they hope to lead Good Lives (see also Good Lives Model). In this study, we research MEM forensic service users’ perspectives on their needs and how these needs can be fulfilled. Additionally, forensic service providers contribute to the discovery of promising practices, while indicating their professional needs concerning the treatment of MEM forensic service users. In a last phase, these results will be internationally validated by experts in treating MEM service users in a forensic psychiatric context.
Promoter(s): Freya Vander Laenen , Stijn Vandevelde
Researcher(s): Marjolein De Pau
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Law and Criminology
Period of time: 2021 - 2025

Description: Under the supervision of Christophe Verbruggen and Margo De Koster, this project researches how Belgian police forces, in collaboration with the French police and Russian secret services, tracked, monitored and possibly caught and deported fugitive Eastern European migrants, 1880-1914. At the same time, this study also considers and examines the strategies used by the migrants themselves to escape the police surveillance and possible persecution. Thus, this research explores how in a constant legislative context the practice of surveillance, expulsion and cooperation between foreign police bodies evolved through its interaction with the strategies used by the monitored and prosecuted Russian migrants to avoid detection and punishment.
Promoter(s): Christophe Verbruggen , Margo De Koster
Researcher(s): Maïté Van Vyve
Faculty / Faculties: Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Period of time: 2018 - 2025