Murder, manslaughter halved in 20 years; Most women killed by their partner

Last year 125 people were killed in the Netherlands, a decrease of nearly half compared to the 223 murder or manslaughter cases in the country in 2000, Statistics Netherlands reported on Wednesday. Some 60 percent of women killed over the past years were killed by their partner or ex.

In 2000, a total of 153 men died of murder or manslaughter. In 2018 that was 76 and last year 81. In 2000 a total of 70 women were the victims of murder or manslaughter. In 2018 that decreased to 43. Last year 44 women were killed in the Netherlands.

In the period 2015 to 2019, the police identified a perpetrator in over 80 percent of murder or manslaughter cases. In nearly 60 percent of cases in which women were killed, the suspected perpetrator was her partner or ex. Women are often stabbed or strangled to death in their own homes.

Men are more often killed by strangers. In a third of the cases, the suspected perpetrator was someone the victim knew. One in six cases involved a settlement in the criminal circuit. Over the past five years, three quarters of male victims were shot or stabbed to death.

The perpetrators of murder and manslaughter over the past years were almost exclusively men. Last year the Dutch courts convicted nearly 600 people of murder or manslaughter or attempts thereto. Almost a quarter of these crimes happened in 2019, half the year before, and the rest in the previous years. More than 90 percent of the convicted perpetrators are men. 

A third of all the murders committed last year were committed in one of the Netherlands' three largest cities - 17 in Amsterdam, 14 in The Hague and 11 in Rotterdam. Relatively speaking 2 out of 100 thousand inhabitants of Amsterdam were killed in the past five years, three times higher than the national average of 0.7 per 100 thousand inhabitants. In Rotterdam this was 1.8 and in The Hague 1.6 murder or manslaughter victims per 100 thousand inhabitants.