Maria de Jong
Maria de Jong – de Kruijf (1985) is a PhD-candidate at the Child Law department of the Leiden Law school. She received her MSc in Criminology from Leiden University (2007), her LL.M from Sussex University where she took part in the master programme ‘Family and responsibility in the Law’ (2008) and her LL.M in Dutch Law from Utrecht University (2012).
Maria has been working at the child Law department since 2009. She started as a junior researcher and was seconded to the Ministry of Justice as a privacy jurist in several (youth law related) projects. She also was a co-author of ‘Wegwijs in het jeugdsanctierecht’ (A Guide to the Dutch Juvenile Justice Sanctioning System) and the Children’s Rights Monitor 2012.
Her PhD-research is about the justification of placement in closed youth care. In 2010 almost 3,000 children were placed in closed youth care for an average period of 8.1 months. Closed youth care is a new (since 2008) residential (multi-)treatment programme for children aged 0-18 carried out in a secure institution. Closed youth care implicates deprivation of liberty and could be considered as one of the severest child protection measures under Dutch law. The central question is whether placement of children in closed youth care is lawful in light of international human rights and children’s rights standards. The thesis focuses on the aim of placement, the last resort character and duration and termination of placement. Recently she received extra funding for research about the participation of children in a court room case about their very own out of home placement in a closed facility.
Besides, she gives courses to professionals, and teaches in several courses like Youth Law, Children’s Rights, Juvenile Justice Worldwide and Child Protection & Child Care.
Key publications
- Voorstudie Kinderrechtenmonitor (2011)
- Wegwijs in het jeugdsanctierecht. Onderzoek naar het juridisch kader voor de zwaarste jeugdsancties in theorie en praktijk. (2011)