Privatising Criminal Justice? Shopping in the Netherlands

The Netherlands is encouraging Public Private Partnerships (PPP) for reducing problems of crime and anti-social behaviour. This article reports research done by the author on the Collective Shop Ban, allegedly the most successful form of Public Private Partnerships currently operating in the Netherlands. With the Collective Shop Ban, shopkeepers have their own measure to keep individuals who exhibit anti-social behaviour from entering their shops. In this way private parties, i.e. shopkeepers and security personnel, are co-responsible for detecting and punishing classic punishable acts such as shoplifting and fraud. The Collective Shop Ban is an interesting measure to study, all the more because it is no longer based primarily on criminal law, but on civil law. It is interesting to see to what extent the Collective Shop Ban differs from the Dutch criminal law approach, what this civil law approach means for the perpetrator, and what are the legal and societal consequences.