Professor J. Hendriks (1956) has been named Professor by Special Appointment of Forensic Child and Youth Care Sciences Diagnostics and Treatment at the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. The chair was designated on behalf of the Van der Hoeven Foundation.

As professor by special appointment, Jan Hendriks will mainly focus on developing and promoting diagnosis and treatment skills in the area of forensic child and youth care. As a part of his duties, Hendriks will be critically monitoring developments in the area of risk assessment and interventions.

Jan Hendriks is a social educationalist and developmental psychologist. He has published articles on the issue of youth criminality since 1993, specialising in the subject of young sex offenders. He obtained his doctorate from VU University Amsterdam in 2006 for his thesis Young sex offenders; a study of subtypes and repeat offenders. As a member of the Netherlands Study Group on Female Criminality (Studiegroep naar Meisjes- en Vrouwencriminaliteit), he published various articles on crime among girls and girls as sex offenders. His field of academic interest also includes youth interventions within the context of the criminal justice system.

Hendriks has worked in the field of youth forensic services since 1985. He started his career as court consultant at the Centre for Community-Based Youth Care, where he subsequently served as head of Youth Criminal Cases and Youth Treatment from 1993 onwards. Since 2000, he has worked as a clinical psychologist at De Waag, the Netherlands’ largest centre for outpatient forensic psychiatry in The Hague. He has also served as a consultant to JeudgzorgPlus Youth Care centre Avenier (previously Harreveld Youth Custodial Institution) since 2006. Since 2009, Hendriks has served as Professor by special appointment of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology at VU University Amsterdam. His 2010 inaugural lecture, ‘Wie Joost heet, mag het zeggen’ (‘Goodness Knows’), offered a critical analysis of widely accepted knowledge on the underlying causes of criminality and the influence of media and politics on key policy aspects. As of 2007, Hendriks has served as Guest Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam’s Forensic Child and Youth Care Sciences study programme. He also serves in various management capacities at organisations including Stichting 180 (an organisation responsible for overseeing various youth interventions) and the Association for Forensic Sexology. In addition to serving as a permanent member of the Samson Committee (research on the sexual abuse of children placed in foster care and residential youth centres as the result of government intervention), Hendriks participates in various scientific monitoring committees.