Police need €600 million to get a grip on cybercrime, neighborhoods: report

The Netherlands police are still struggling with manpower shortages and have difficulty adapting to new forms of crime, such as cybercrime, according to an emergency plan 'Connected to neighborhood, web and world' by the Public Prosecution Service, police, regional mayors and the Ministry of Security and Justice.

The government must invest at least 600 million euros to address these problems, the plan states, according to the Telegraaf which has the document in its possession.

The manpower shortage and increasing backlogs at the police mean that the police are losing contact with the neighborhoods and citizens, and cases remain unsolved. "We have 200 sex offenses on the shelf in Oost Brabant due to a lack of specialists and investigative capacity," Eindhoven mayor John Jorritsma said in the document.

Prosecutor Gerrit van der Burg pointed to ever increasing cybercrime and the police struggling to tackle it. "More technical resources and specialists are needed to protect citizens from this transformed crime," he said.

In order to address staff shortages, and strengthen the police's presence online and in the neighborhoods, a thousand new police officers need to be recruited and trained. Outdated IT systems need to be replaced. And more knowledge needs to be acquired in the field of cybercrime. This will cost around 600 million euros, according to the plan, which focuses on the coming five years.