I was born in Apeldoorn, a city of more than 150,000 inhabitants in the Netherlands on 22 March 1963, and I still live in the same city. After a jolly and care-free time at elementary school and a troublesome time at secondary school, I attended night-time college during the years 1985-1990. I obtained an economic and administrative degree and I passed for preparatory school.
.JPG)
In September 1990 I started law school at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, where I specialized in criminal law and criminology. During my time at the University I researched women trafficking and organized crime as a project with other students. The results of our research into the social construction of organized crime has been published in 1994 in Hoe punitief is Nederland?, as part of the then 60th anniversary of the Willem Pompe Instituut voor Strafrechtswetenschappen; the faculty group from which I obtained my law degree on 21 August 1995. My research De sociale constructie van (satanisch) ritueel misbruik [The social construction of (satanic) ritual abuse] was nominated for the Willem Pompe Institute Prize 1996, which is awarded every second year by the Stichting ter bevordering van Strafrechtelijk Onderzoek Utrecht (Institution for the advancement of Criminological Research Utrecht).
After obtaining my law degree, I continued my comparative research into the social construction of satanic ritual abuse in the United States and the Netherlands. The results of said research formed the basis for my dissertation on which I started to work in the course of 2000. That research has been completed now. On 29 October 2009 I obtained my Doctorate at Maastricht University. My dissertation Van kwaad tot erger: De sociale constructie van satanisch ritueel misbruik in de Verenigde Staten en Nederland can only be ordered through ta_beetstra@hotmail.com.
