Book Review: van der Laan, A. L., Vervoorn, L., van der Schans, C. A., & Bogaerts S. (2008). Being Inside: An Exploratory Study into Emotional Reactions of Juvenile Offenders to Custody. Netherlands: WODC, pp. 135

• Published date: 01 December 2009
• Author: Anita Kalunta-Crumpton
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567709349188
• Date: 01 December 2009
• Subject Matter: Articles

effectively respond to issues of injustice in a justice system that handles issues of crime and punish-

ment in a manner that conflicts with my religious beliefs? For many, this conflict has resulted in a

handsoff approach regarding the structure and functioning of the U.S. justice system, especially pris-

ons. Logan’s biggest contribution to the field is that he provides a blueprint by which individuals can

begin to engage the obstacles that unjustly hinder offender reentry while synonymously adhering to

the social ethics outlined in their religious doctrine or theology and not violating the separation of

church and state principle.

Although Logan writes from a Christian perspective, this book is suitable for anyone who believes

in living their life by a moral ethic regardless of race, gender, age, religion, etc. It is a must read for

anyone who comes into contact with American prisons and the associated collateral social

consequences.

Shani P. Gray

Valdosta State University

van der Laan, A. L., Vervoorn, L., van der Schans, C. A., & Bogaerts S. (2008).

Being Inside: An Exploratory Study into Emotional Reactions of Juvenile

Offenders to Custody. Netherlands: WODC, pp. 135.

DOI: 10.1177/1057567709349188

Being Inside is the outcome of an exploratory research study, requested by the Department for

Judicial Youth Policy (DJJ) of the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands, to explore the emotional

responses of juvenile offenders to custody in the Netherlands. The DJJ request was precipitated by

some evidence-based observation that some young people react to custody with feelings of pride, as

opposed to positive behavior-changing emotions considered the expected outcomes of incarceration.

The primary purpose of the study was to examine how juvenile offenders’ emotional reactions to

custody affect the prevention or creation of recidivism. In trying to determine the relationships

between juvenile offender responses to custody and recidivism, the study focused attention on incar-

cerated male juvenile offenders aged 1224 years.

Following a nine-page summary of the content of the book, van der Laan and colleagues arranged

the book into 7 chapters. In the introductory chapter (chapter 1), we are introduced to the structure

and tasks of the Dutch correctional institutions with reference to young offenders. Very importantly,

the authors point to the relative neglect of the relationship between juvenile experiences of detention

and recidivism in the academic literature. While the authors acknowledge existing literature, such as

the works of Sampson and Laub in drawing attention to the impact of detention on recidivism, these

works are considered limited in the sense that they adopt a broad approach to their analyses of

detention and recidivism, and thus fail to embrace the direct and specific experiences of the offender

during detention. This gap in knowledge, the authors claim, forms the starting point of their

two-pronged research question: (a) what is the relation between custody and the emotional reactions

of juvenile inmates and (b) based on the literature, what can be said about the effects of emotional

reactions of juveniles during custody on criminal recidivism? (p. 22).

Data for the research study were drawn from two main sources. The first source derives from a

review of existing literature pertaining to the link between emotional reactions to custody and recidi-

vism. The second data source springs from interviews with 21 experts who worked in 4 separate

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