Conclusıon Clause Samples
Conclusıon. The files contain very little information about the smuggled persons, but quite a lot about the smugglers. Several different functions that can occur in Chinese smuggling operations were identified on the basis of the literature. This chapter examined whether these functions could be distinguished in the Netherlands. Some of the roles were filled by defendants in the cases reviewed and others were not. For example, no recruiters were found. This is due in part to the source mate- rial used. The ban on data exchange with China prevents us knowing precisely what happens there. On the other hand, the data in the files suggests that recruit- ment does not play a very important role. This is logical in view of the principles of social capital from a migration perspective (see section 2.2.4). Family and friends appear to influence the decisions migrants make about whether or not to have themselves smuggled to a foreign country. It is also common for family members and friends to put the potential migrant in touch with smugglers. Apparently, the Dutch smugglers do not have to go in search of clients. In a number of cases, the clients found them. Supposedly, migrants choose a particu- lar country for specific reasons and therefore do not allow smugglers to take them just anywhere. Due to the nature of the source material available, however, there is no information on any social bonds between the smuggler and the smuggled people, or the living environment where the smuggled people end up. Another function category that was not found in the research group is the local guide. This is to be expected because the function is irrelevant in the Nether- lands. There are no sparsely populated, inaccessible border areas. Corrupt public officials appear to play only a marginal role in the Netherlands, which from a Dutch criminological perspective is not a surprising conclusion. Previous research showed that Dutch investigating officers are not highly susceptible to corruption (▇▇▇▇ & ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, 2004: 205). Criminal groups in the Netherlands prefer to avoid detection than to bribe law enforcement officers (▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ et al., 2003: 18). On the other hand, there are indications of corruption among govern- ment officials in China. However, again, because court records were used, little information could be obtained about this subject. Furthermore, debt collecting is apparently not an important part of the smuggling process in the Netherlands. None of the suspects was engaged in this ...
Conclusıon. Information from field interviews, case file study, interviews with investigators and historical municipal archives will be used to try to answer the research ques- tions. Each of the sources has advantages and limitations. When it became clear that an extensive field interview procedure was not feasible for this study, a case file analysis was chosen. This produced some unique material, such as wire taps and police observations. The disadvantage, however, is that police data is inher- ently biased and can cause distortion (but then again, so are field interviews). Anyone involved in smuggling is automatically regarded as a criminal. The underlying motives are often disregarded. Furthermore, the use of Dutch court files generates specific limitations. First, the criminal cases focus on what hap- pens in the Netherlands, and not what happens abroad. In some cases, the Dutch police shared information with neighboring countries. Tips were given to foreign investigative agencies about persons in other countries who had been identified by means of wiretaps. Often the Dutch court files contain little or no information about the subsequent findings of foreign investigations of such suspects. That information would have to be obtained from the files in the relevant countries. This was not feasible for this study, due to a lack of time. A few foreign investiga- tors were interviewed in an attempt to fill this gap. Second, the court files contain only limited information about the relation- ship between smuggler and smuggled persons. As the investigation focuses on perpetrators and their crimes, other information is irrelevant for the prosecution. Because migrants are not seen as criminals, there is not a lot of information about them available. Third, it is theoretically possible that successful smugglers (i.e. those who have not been caught) differ from those in OM-data. Successful smugglers may operate in a completely different way from those who get arrested. The empirical data might therefore be distorted. Nevertheless, the distortion will most likely be limited in practice because the files studied are highly diverse. As will be shown, there is great diversity in the smuggling routes, legal and illegal channels and group sizes. The choice to use all the files that are related to the research topic still results in an extensive pic- ture. For the purposes of this study, the advantages of a file analysis therefore ulti- mately outweighed the disadvantages. The f...
Conclusıon. In the Netherlands, 88 investigations into Chinese human smuggling were con- ducted over a period of eight years, resulting in the arrest and prosecution of 172 people. Four men and one woman were arrested more than once. In one case, no less than 13 people were brought to trial simultaneously. At the opposite end of the scale, 54 cases involved just one person. However, these numbers do not indi- cate anything about the general level of organization. If they did, the fact that the majority of cases involved only a single suspect would suggest that smuggling in the Netherlands has a low level of organization or is not organized at all. The case file study shows, however, that several people were certainly involved in the small- scale cases. It was only that those individuals could not be tried in the Dutch courts for a number of different reasons. The importance of small cases is also evident from the fact that often several migrants were intercepted at the same time. The small-scale cases (one or two defendants) accounted for nearly a quar- ter of the total number of intercepted illegal migrants.