Punish youth: take away driver's license

To stop a new wave of criminal youths, chief detective Marjolein Smit from Amsterdam is proposing a new, broader scale of punishments and measures. Rather than community Smit, young peoples' driver's licenses should be taken away. "For every young criminal that we pick up, two others stand up", says Smit in the book Passed (In Dutch 'Doorgeschoten' or, 'Shot Through') by Parool journalist Paul Vugts, which is on stands today. "Crime pays, is the credo, because the current punishments don't work." Smit is pleading for the authorities to act "collectively against these youths". "Why don't we say: you don't get a driver's license or passport as long as you keep committing crimes? Why no 'three strikes and you're out': after a third crime a long time in the cage? Then these youths are off your hands for at least 10 years." According to Smit, the system of compensation, dissuasion, re-socialization and rehabilitation no longer works in the fight against young people who grow into unscrupulous criminals in a short amount of time. In his book, Vugts paints a picture of "the new generation of firearm-dangerous criminals from Amsterdam." He sources a series of violent crimes, such as the shooting in the Staatsliedenbuurt and the fatal robbery of jeweler Fred Hund in Amsterdam West.