How Pseudolegal Advice Manifests Itself in Criminal Offending and Suspect Interrogations of Sovereign Citizens in the Netherlands

Lisa van Es; Jan-Willem van Prooijen; Jelle van Buuren; Adriaan P. van Veldhuizen

doi:10.1080/01639625.2025.2599959

How Pseudolegal Advice Manifests Itself in Criminal Offending and Suspect Interrogations of Sovereign Citizens in the Netherlands

Lisa van Es^*
, Jan-Willem van Prooijen
, Jelle van Buuren
, Adriaan P. van Veldhuizen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Dutch security services noticed in 2024 that crimes associated with the sovereign citizen movement have increased in frequency and severity. While most sovereign citizens obey the law, key influential people within the movement might inspire others to commit crimes using their own interpretations of the law, also known as "pseudolaw". We compared popular literary sources within the sovereign citizen movement with police interrogations of sovereign crime suspects in the Netherlands to investigate this. The results showed that the interrogation transcripts indeed seemed to reflect the pseudolegal rhetoric of sovereign influencers.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-21
Number of pages	21
Journal	Deviant Behavior
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2025.2599959
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 17 Dec 2025

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abstract = "Dutch security services noticed in 2024 that crimes associated with the sovereign citizen movement have increased in frequency and severity. While most sovereign citizens obey the law, key influential people within the movement might inspire others to commit crimes using their own interpretations of the law, also known as {"}pseudolaw{"}. We compared popular literary sources within the sovereign citizen movement with police interrogations of sovereign crime suspects in the Netherlands to investigate this. The results showed that the interrogation transcripts indeed seemed to reflect the pseudolegal rhetoric of sovereign influencers.",

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AB - Dutch security services noticed in 2024 that crimes associated with the sovereign citizen movement have increased in frequency and severity. While most sovereign citizens obey the law, key influential people within the movement might inspire others to commit crimes using their own interpretations of the law, also known as "pseudolaw". We compared popular literary sources within the sovereign citizen movement with police interrogations of sovereign crime suspects in the Netherlands to investigate this. The results showed that the interrogation transcripts indeed seemed to reflect the pseudolegal rhetoric of sovereign influencers.

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How Pseudolegal Advice Manifests Itself in Criminal Offending and Suspect Interrogations of Sovereign Citizens in the Netherlands

Abstract

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