Netherlands crime rate falls across all categories

The number of crimes committed in the Netherlands decreased by 23 percent over the past seven years. Last year the police registered just over one million crimes, compared to 1.3 million in 2007. The decrease can be seen across the board in all categories of crime.

This is according to the Crime and Justice publication of the Scientific Investigation and Documentation Center, the Council for the Judiciary and Statistics Netherlands. Statistics Netherlands released the figures of some of the trends in this publication on Monday.

The total number of suspects the police registered fell by a third in the period between 2007 and 2014. The number fell from 497 thousand to 312 thousand. In that 312 thousand, 215 thousand were different people. Some people were suspects several times in that year. The number of juvenile suspects decreased by more than half, from 53 thousand to 23 thousand.

This decline can also be seen in the number of cases handled by the court and the Public Prosecutor. In 2014 a total of 98 thousand cases appeared in court, almost a quarter less than in 2007. The Public Prosecutor's work amounted to 220 thousand cases, a decrease of 20 percent compared to 2007.