Municipal archives Sample Clauses

Municipal archives. The ‘Case files’ section states that the entry into force of the ‘human smuggling article’ (Art. 197a of the Dutch Penal Code) was an important point in 1994 for the delineation of the empirical material. Since then a stricter approach has been taken to human smuggling, partly as a result of the article being toughened up significantly in 1996. Before 1994, however, there was no penal framework. The primary source material therefore deals with a fairly recent period. Xxxxx remarks that “much of the social scientific literature dealing with organized crime suffers from a particular kind of a-historicism that critically weakens arguments about the nature of organized crime” (Block, 1994: ix). There is a potential risk of event- based historiography (Braudel, 1979). The here and now seems to predominate; attention is focused exclusively on events that occur within a short period of time. For example, conventional knowledge has it that Chinese organized crime is a rel- atively recent development in the United States. However, by researching various documents in New York City area archives and libraries, XxXxxxxxx was able to show that Chinese organized crime was already well entrenched in 19th century New York (McIllwain, 2004). In order to understand human smuggling in a longer time span, not only were retired investigators interviewed about their past experiences but informa- tion was also gleaned from municipal archives. Consent had to be obtained from a local privacy officer to view the information. The cities of Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam, in particular, have historically been home to a relatively large concentration of Chinese people. The municipal archives still contain a few old police files related to the old Chinese community. Those files were searched specifically for information on human smuggling and illegal migration. The municipal archives concerned go back to the establishment of the Chinese com- munity in the Netherlands in 1911. A great deal of information is available in Rotterdam and Amsterdam regarding the period before the Second World War. In The Hague there is more data on the 1960s and 1970s. The information com- prises, for example, reports drafted by investigators of the Aliens Police specializ- ing in the Chinese community, or whistleblower letters from within the Chinese community. There is also correspondence between chief constables and Xxxxx- tries regarding the ‘Chinese problem’. These municipal records provided some in...