The police regularly manipulate crime figures, according to a study among police officers by investigative journalism platform Investico. Criminal offenses are kept off the books, police officers try to discourage citizens from filling reports, and cases are marked as 'resolved' when they are not, according to the study published in De Groene Amsterdammer.
The platform surveyed nearly 1,500 police officers and conducted interviews with dozens of cops and others involved.
The total number of crimes registered by the Dutch police in 2018 decreased by 6 percent compared to the year before, Statistics Netherlands reports. The number of sex crimes, however, is on the rise.
The police registered almost 9 thousand sexual offenses like rape, sexual harassment or -assault last year, compared to 8,400 in 2017. The number of rape reports increased from 1,200 in 2014 to 1,900 last year. And the number of sexual assault reports increased from 1,700 in 2015 to 2,400 last year.
Continuing the trend of past years, the number of registered crimes in the Netherlands dropped in 2018. The police registered a total of 766,638 crimes, a decrease of 6.1 percent compared to 2017. However, the police note that the decrease is slowing down. "The decline seems to have come to an end in the last six months", the police said.
The number of crimes committed in the Netherlands is much higher than reported by the authorities, because many people feel that reporting a crime is not worth it, according to unions FNV and CNV, among others. They call for a new and independent investigation into crime figures in the Netherlands, ANP reports.
According to a statement by the police the number of recorded crimes in the Netherlands over the past six months declined with 4 percent compared to the same period last year.
According to crime figures published by the police, there was less crime in 2013 than the previous year.
The Dutch bureau of statistics, Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS), presented the crime figures of 2011 per municipality. The report concludes that the chance that a burglar gets caught is 11,5 percent in the Netherlands.
