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Over a third (35 percent) of Netherlands residents think that one or more of their neighbors are involved in criminal activities. In the city, 48 percent suspect people in their community of being criminals. Most don’t report their suspicions, EenVandaag found in a survey of 23,000 members of its opinion panel following a government campaign launched last month to encourage citizens to report suspicious activities.
Dutch people notice a lot of suspicious activities, EenVandaag found. “We suspect people in the neighborhood of activities that do not belong in a residential area. Strange cars drive back and forth and too many packages are delivered to an address,” one respondent said.
18 percent of Dutch people say they’ve noticed violence, 28 percent know about a cannabis farm or drug lab, and 11 percent said that someone in their neighborhood was the target of an explosive attack in the past two years. 8 percent have had an ATM bombing - in which perpetrators rob an ATM by blowing it open with explosives - in their neighborhood. “In the cities, these figures are much higher,” the program said.
Less obvious signs of crime are also widespread. 20 percent of panel members have noticed shops or restaurants that never have customers, 14 percent have seen suspicious people visiting locals, and 5 percent report empty buildings with the lights on at night. One-third have taken note of a neighbor whose car is more expensive than their income would warrant.
Netherlands residents rarely report the suspicious activities they notice. Only three in ten people said they’d filed a report. Six in ten said they did not. 37 percent of respondents don’t think the authorities will do anything with the report.
28 percent of respondents said that their neighborhoods have become less safe in the past two years. A third of those who experienced criminal activities in their neighborhood considered moving because of it. 13 percent actually left the neighborhood. The other 20 percent stayed, some because they had no choice. "Threats, sexual harassment, nuisance from confused people. Undesirable behavior directed at me. I would really like to move, but that is not possible in the current market,” a respondent said.
