Freya Augusteijn

Freya Augusteijn serves as a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, with cross-appointment in the Dutch Private Law research group, A-LAB, and Amsterdam Centre for Family Law. Her empirical legal scholarship focuses on victim compensation mechanisms within Dutch criminal and private law frameworks, particularly examining pain and suffering damages for sexual offense victims and bereaved next of kin. She is currently a project researcher in the STRIDE initiative (2021-2027), which investigates legal protections for elderly populations through an empirical lens.

Her research program centers on Empirical Legal Studies, Victimology, and Compensation Law, utilizing statistical analysis to uncover patterns in judicial decision-making. Key investigations include the predictability of court-adjudicated damages, the influence of victim labels in sexual crime proceedings, and normative dimensions of empirical legal methodology. This work bridges law, criminology, and social psychology to address systemic arbitrariness in legal outcomes for vulnerable groups.

Recent publications (2023-2024) demonstrate methodological rigor in analyzing Dutch court data, with recurring themes of victim agency, legal norm implementation, and interdisciplinary research design. Her collaborative projects consistently examine how legal frameworks translate into tangible outcomes for victims, revealing tensions between statutory mandates and judicial practice through quantitative and qualitative lenses.