Janine Janssen (56) is not someone who likes to put all her eggs in one basket. She holds four part-time positions: she is professor of criminology and legal anthropology at the Open University, lecturer in violence and dependency at Avans University of Applied Sciences, lecturer at the Police Academy and head of research at the National Expertise Center for Honor-related Violence (LEC EGG) of the National Police. And also in terms of content, she is “not someone who will be very happy if it always has to be on the same stamp”, as she puts it herself.
In the past few years she has published, among other things, about the lack of shelter for the pets of victims of domestic violence, about the relationship between domestic violence and narcissism, about human trafficking, online violence, environmental crime, the criminalization of psychological violence, honour-related violence, sexual violence and criminal exploitation of students. “I can imagine that you are thinking: this is going all over the place,” she says during a Teams conversation (she could no longer find time to meet in person this year). “But there is definitely a line.” And that line is the relationship between violence and dependency.
At the beginning of this century, Janssen was involved in the founding of what would later become the LEC EGG. “I wondered: what are the similarities between honour-related violence – i.e. violence in choosing and leaving partners that interferes with the family, problems such as circumcision of girls, forced marriage, marital captivity – and other forms of violence. And then you see that a lot of violence in the Netherlands is committed by a perpetrator who not only knows the victim, but on whom the victim is emotionally or materially dependent. We have all thought for a long time: women are bothered by scary men standing in the bushes. But I always say: in the Netherlands we don’t have enough greenery to explain all that violence.”
The new one Prevalence Monitor for Domestic Violence and Sexual Offenses 2024 from CBS was released in November. Janssen quotes: “There are more than 1.3 million victims of domestic violence alone in the Netherlands, in a population of 18 million. That’s quite something! We know less about human trafficking, but here too, perpetrators are often in the victim’s social network.”
As humans, we often think that we are so special compared to other animals. Well, I think we are especially special in the chunks we can make
Why do you find violence in dependency relationships so important?
“If you look at the human animal, how we grow up and live, then it must be safe in a family and in relationships. There you should be able to gain energy to go out into the world; there you must find protection against an outside world that is not always gentle. And when things go wrong in the most intimate relationships that people have, it is so threatening. That’s where the motivation lies for me.”
Janssen is not simply talking about “the animal, the human being”. She grew up next to her grandfather’s farm in the Limburg countryside. Animals were “set pieces,” she says, which she didn’t think about any further. But in the late 1990s, she interviewed for her PhD research men serving short prison sentences about life before, during and after detention, and one of them was very concerned about what happened to his dog while he was in custody.
“That dog was all he had,” she says. “That struck me enormously. Within the law, animals were then regarded as things that could be stolen or poached or used as weapons. But when I delved further into animals in criminology, a world opened up for me.”
She read the books of criminologists such as Geertrui Cazaux and Piers Beirne, who stand up for animal welfare. And she learned the word speciesism: discrimination based on animal species. She published the book in 2019 Why criminology is dear to me. In it she discusses a wide variety of topics that all have to do with animals and criminology: from animal rights to slaughter without stunning and from animal abuse to therapy and police animals.
The great strength of animals, with the exception of a number of birds, is: they don’t say anything back. So you can say anything you want to them
You call that book a personal plea for non-speciesism.
“Yes, as humans we often think that we are so special compared to other animals. Well, I think we are especially special in the chunks we can make. Many current climate problems have to do with people’s overestimation. The world would look different if we were more aware that we are animals among animals. That we are not at the top of the entire system, but are part of it. To me, how we treat the planet is the ultimate form of violence in dependency. Apparently we don’t realize that we need that planet.”
One of your areas of interest, you write on LinkedIn, is ‘green criminology’. What is that?
“People used to talk about it victimless crime. If someone was illegally discharging a dangerous substance, that was a victimless crime. We now think differently about this, because we all suffer from this: as a society, but also in the ecosystems. Green criminology therefore assumes a broader concept of victim and also looks at the consequences of human actions on other species and nature. Take people who produce drugs. These are generally not the types who hand in their waste separately. And because they don’t get to the chemo cart, the waste products from their drug production unfortunately find their way into the environment.
“The field of green criminology is rapidly developing in the Netherlands. The Dutch Association of Criminology, of which I am currently chairman, also has a green criminology division, led by Daan van Uhm. And my colleagues at the Open University and I are very interested in the legal aspect. We are now supervising a PhD student who is investigating: if the Wadden Sea were to become a legal entity, could we protect it better?”
From illegal mining to poaching: much crime has a green edge
Let’s take a look at the animals. In your book you formulate ‘Jansen’s law’: the fewer expectations people have of their fellow human beings and the future, the more animals they have at home. How do you explain that?
“I think those people are a kind of alternative community create around themselves. There’s a saying: when you get to know people, you start to love animals. The great strength of animals, with the exception of a number of birds, is: they don’t say anything back. So you can tell them anything you want and they won’t deny it.”
As a student I went to Colombia. And I come from the countryside myself, but then you come across farmers and then you see: these people really have no use for me at all.
You recently spoke at the conference of Mendoo, a foundation that cares for pets of victims of domestic violence. Many victims have animals and because they often cannot go to the shelter, women stay with their violent partners longer.
“You have to imagine: in such a domestic violence situation your environment becomes very small. You keep the secret from the outside world, you become isolated. A pet can then be one of the few valuable contacts you have left, even for children. It’s dramatic if you lose that too.
“And of course I think that animals have just as much right to safety. They are often abused, so you have to help save them. They are not utensils, you are responsible for them.”
Another thing: you did not attend a police academy or law school, but studied cultural anthropology, obtained your propaedeutic certificate in Spanish language and literature and completed a social studies teacher training course. What did you want to be when you grew up?
“I thought I wanted to go into development aid. As a student I went to Colombia. And I come from the countryside myself, but then you come across farmers and then you see: these people really have no use for me at all. If I wanted to make a difference here, I should have gone to the agricultural university in Wageningen.
“In Colombia I realized that I wanted to do something in my own society. So when I came back, I started taking all kinds of different subjects like crazy. That’s how I work: in width. Then I have room for associations and connections. The relationship between violence and dependency and the environment, for example, I can only see that way because I work so broadly.”