User:Cor Gutter

Cor Gutter was born 2 June, 1932 in Bandung (Indonesia, at the time a Dutch colony). In 1937, his parents brought him to The Netherlands.

After studying Law at Leiden University (1951-1956), he was employed at the Ministry of Justice in the Dutch State organization in The Hague (The Netherlands) (1958-1961) and, in Surinam, as deputy prosecutor and expert for the modernization of the Code of Criminal Procedure of that country (1961-1964).

From 1964 till 1984, he taught Penal Law at the Law faculty (now called "Erasmus School of Law") of Erasmus University Rotterdam (formerly called "Nederlandse Economische Hogeschool"), at first as assistant to L.H.C. (Louk) Hulsman (1923-2009), who had been appointed professor of Penal Law and Criminology at that faculty in 1963. In 1971, Gutter was appointed 'lector' (reader), and in 1980 professor of Penal Law at the same faculty.

Together with Hulsman and others, he participated in an overhaul of the curriculum of the faculty that resulted in a program called 'P70'. According to this curriculum, introduced in September 1970, all students would - along with the disciplines that had been traditional in Law faculties in the Netherlands since at least the 19th century - have to study sociology and epistemology (theory of knowledge). Those who aspired to an appointment as judge or public prosecutor would have to study psychology, social psychology and criminology as well.

Hulsman, at the time, asserted 'the science of penal law' to be nearly perfect. Lacking was a doctrine of 'sanctioning', the term he used to denote 'punishments' such as imprisonment and many other uses of force in the context of 'penal-law enforcement'. These activities he ascribed mainly to judges, whom he thought to be in need of knowledge of ‘the causes of crime’ and, more generally, of human behaviour, which he supposed criminology could provide them with. Acqaintance with sociology and (social) psychology would enable them to determine the right sanction.

The implementation of the new curriculum - entailing, among other things, the appointment of professors and other teachers for the supposedly empirical disciplines of the curriculum - caused all the troubles that could be expected from meddling in a training based on medieval concepts. Part of them have been described on http://www.sociusnet.eu/Teacher/