The essays of sections I-III describe the country's population and its criminal justice system. They note that the Netherlands is densely populated, with the large cities having high proportions of young people and non-Dutch residents. The economy is strong, and unemployment rates are low. The essays in section IV trace trends in crime and punishment. They indicate that Dutch crime trends generally parallel those in other European countries. Crime increased from the 1970s through the 1990s and has stabilized or declined since then. This has clearly been the case for property offenses, but evidence for this trend in violent offenses is less certain. Trends in imprisonment rates for the Netherlands are distinct from other European countries. Incarceration rates per 100,000 population have increased continuously since the early 1970s, when they were the lowest in Europe. The three-decade increase in the imprisonment rate since then is by far the largest in Europe, rivaling that of the United States during the same period. The essays in section V provide overviews of criminological research in the Netherlands. Topics addressed include organized crime; organizational crime; juvenile offending, with a separate essay on serious and violent juvenile delinquency; sex offenders and sex offenses; links between migration and crime; and urbanization and urban crime. A subject index and chapter tables, figures, and references