Dutch PM’s party supports expanded police profiling

Ruling party VVD wants to implement a policy nationwide in which anyone flashing cash or driving fancy cars can be stopped and searched. According to the party, criminals use expensive cars and clothing to raise their prestige and thus form "wrong role models" for young people. This will show that showing off criminal gains does not pay, MP Dilan Yesilgoz said, RTL Nieuws reports.

Opponents of this policy, which is already being used in Rotterdam, fear that this will only lead to more ethnic profiling. Police officers will use external characteristics to determine whether someone can really afford an expensive car, for example, is the concern. In 2016 both rapper Typhoon and Feyenoord footballer Kenneth Vermeer were pulled over in their fancy cars. The police officer who pulled over Typhoon admitted that he was stopped because his 'profile' did not match the car he was driving, the rapper said.

But Yesilgoz thinks that this will be an important step in the fight against organized crime. "What you want is that you show on the street that crime does not pay", the parliamentarian said. "That's what you focus on. Then it has nothing to do with ethnic profiling. Other parties think we have the luxury of being able to philosophize with each other about how we can tackle organized crime. We just have to show that crime doesn't pay."

"The point is that you focus on those wrong role models", the VVD parliamentarian said. "On the guys who already earn a lot of money from crime, so they drive cars they would otherwise never be able to pay."

The VVD wants Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security to sit down with mayors and discuss the national implementation of this approach. The CDA, Grapperhaus' party, already expressed support for this plan.