Police aims to have 35% cops from ethnic minorities

In the coming five years, the Randstad police want to increase the proportion of its officers with ethically diverse backgrounds to 35 percent. "The aim of this is to make the organization more diverse and inclusive," police chiefs Martin Sitalsing of the Midden-Nederland unit and Gery Veldhous of the Noord-Nederland unit, who will supervise the implementation of this action plan, said to NRC.

Over the next five years, the Randstad police will need to recruit 17,000 new cops, as police officers retire. According to Sitalsing, this is the ideal "opportunity to invest in diversity and a new culture to bring about real change." The composition of the police force can change by "investing more in recruitment," he said.

The police force needs to be more diverse for it to continue doing "what we are good at as the Dutch police, namely establishing connections and fine meshing," Sitalsing said. "The community police officer is a little bit of cultural heritage and can go onto the street everywhere on their own. In some neighborhoods, that is under pressure."

"In view of the composition of the population in the Randstad, the police officers will have to change significantly in some districts. In some neighborhoods, 60 percent of the population have a migration background. In [Utrecht's] Kanaleneiland that percentage is 80. We are nowhere near reaching those numbers," Sitalsing said.