Crime in the Netherlands

As in Germany crime has become a more and more discussed topic in the Netherlands. This doesn´t have to coincide with actually occuring crimes, but with the impression which is fed by spectacular cases and common nuisances. However, the question about which they talk there too is how to get to more safety.

To the discussion about crime belongs the question where crime takes place most often and where it is safe. The Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad publishes with his Misdaadmeter an overview about crime in the Netherlands. It is possible to look up the number of occurences of crimes for a given town, village or borough. To get the (un-)safety of a municipality the newspaper calculates each year a misdaadscore and publishes a ranking. The position of a municipality in this ranking provides of course often an issue for discussion. The Misdaadscore is calculated as follows:

From the official police reports the position of each municipality is calculated for 12 offences, based on their relative frequencies compared to the population. Six offences are weighed twice:

• car theft
• threatening
• assault and battery
• holdup
• street robbery
• burglary of houses

The remaining six are weighed once:

• car breaking
• theft from a box, a carport, a barn or a summer house
• moped theft
• fraud
• car vandalism
• pickpocketing

The sum of the positions makes up the misdaadscore. Municipalities with a population of less than 4.000 are left out of the calculation (in 2006 these have been Ameland, Schiermonnikoog, Vlieland, Rozendaal and Thorn). The resulting ranking consisted thus of 450 municipalities.

From the ranking you can get some interesting insights:

• In the year 2006 the city of Eindhoven has been the most insecure municipality of the Netherlands. It displaced Rotterdam, which lead the ranking in the previous years.
• Amsterdam is not on the podium. Although the former minister of Immigration and Integration Rita Verdonk maintained that the city is turning into a banana republic, it is only on the 9th place (after being 6th in the previous year).
• When you have to name a particularly criminal Dutch city, many people would mention Amsterdam or Rotterdam. But the Dutch secret capital of crime is Roermond! The old bishop´s town climbed from 8th place in 2004 to 4th in 2005 and is now on position 3. When you consider that the actual town of Roermond has a population of only 34.000 inhabitants, is this a remarkable achievement – with a decidedly upward trend!
• The municipality of Zeist near Utrecht experienced in 2006 a setback. After the location of the Royal Netherlands Football Association has improved itself from the 21th place to 52th last year (having been less criminal thus), it found itself at the 37th place in 2006.
• The most safe municipality in 2006 has been Littenseradiel in the northern province of Friesland. It serves thus as a role model for every other village and town in the Netherlands.

From the Misdaadmeter you can derive much. The question is how to interpret it:

• Is the high position of Roermond just because of the incompetence of those who are responsible for fighting crime, or can you say that in a place like Roermond you may expect much crime?
• Do the positions of Zeist show a setback, or could that have happened just by chance?
• Before 2006 only offenses were only reported when charges were pressed. From 2006 on offenses are reported whenever they´re noticed by the police, even when nobody is pressing charges. Thus you can´t easily compare the number of offenses from year to year for a given municipality.
• Some offenses occur so seldom that these don´t take place in many municipalities during a year. The question is how you can rank them (at the Misdaadmeter they use the highest position for each of the municipalities).

Finally you have to take into account that ranking generally do have a first and a last place. About the total number of crimes nothing is being told (it went back in 2006). It would be interesting how the results in Germany (or in other countries) would look like if they were compared in a similar manner.

Tags: Algemeen Dagblad, Amsterdam, Crime, Eindhoven, Holland, Littenseradiel, Misdaadmeter, Roermond, The Netherlands, Zeist