250 break-ins a day in the Netherlands

In the last half year, the Netherlands has experienced 250 break-ins a day. An investigation from RTL Nieuws into the break-in figures from the police has revealed that celebration days are especially popular for robbers. On new year's day, more than 600 break-ins were registered. On boxing day, these were 474 and on Christmas Day 428. Last year, the number of home burglaries was lower than 2012 by 5 percent. To get a sense of the numbers, between 30 June of last year and 30 January of this year, a home was burgled 45,000 times. The figures also state that Amersfoort is break-in central for areas with more than 20,000 residents. There, the burglary figures are 11.7 per 1000 homes. In second place is Almere (10.7) and third is Ede (10.2). In Amersfoort, police are placing burglaries on their top-priorities list, and also place a lot of importance on community information about how they can stop burglars. The number of break-ins in Amersfoort went down in 2013 from the previous year. Especially successful break-ins went down, while the amount of failed break-ins went up. The postal code area with relatively most break-ins is 3814 (Kruiskamp) in Amersfoort with 30.7 break-ins per 1000 homes. Hereafter follow 9084 (Goutum, municipality Leeuwaarden: 24.3) and 2035 (Boerhaavenwijk in Haarlem: 24.2). In urban areas, break-ins happen almost 50 percent more than in the country. It is often the case that the poorest neighborhoods are visited most by burglars. This happens almost 22 percent more often than the average. The richest areas are burgled 12 percent more often than the average. The 'dark days' are still the favorite working hours of the burglar community. In the months November, December and January, there were 40 percent more break-ins than in the three months before.