“If you look at them for one second too long, it’s already too late,” says the seventeen-year-old pre-vocational secondary education student from Het Baken Almere. So every day he goes to school with his head bowed, he says, to avoid being approached by a criminal recruiter. Every day, students from the school community near their educational institution or online are recruited by criminals. His two friends, who are standing next to the seventeen-year-old in front of the entrance to the school, nod in agreement.
The three boys do not want to continue talking here in front of the entrance. It feels safer around the corner from the school. Alertness has become a routine for them. “The recruiters pick the breaks,” says the student. They are waiting for the students on scooters or fat bikes. The friends recognize them immediately. “They often wear dirty black clothes. And they just walk a bit crazy,” says the seventeen-year-old. He imitates them by walking back and forth in a meandering manner.
The rioters are still walking around in large groups and are not confronted by the police
In Almere, criminal recruiters prey on young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods. Relatively many of them live in poverty, are often summoned by Bureau Halt and leave school early. In the city of Flevoland, young people are twelve times more likely than in the rest of the country to end up in organized crime. That shows research from 2022 of the platform View of Subversion.
In February, Almere received more than 6 million euros from the Ministry of Justice to keep young people out of crime. The investment intended for the program Prevention with Authority of the central government, runs until 2029. Since 2019, the 27 municipalities with the greatest risk of crime have participated – selected on the basis of crime figures and the presence of poverty and debt. The program is part of the integral safety policy in Almere.
Undermining, peer pressure and risks
The multi-million investment is intended for “stronger cooperation” between schools, youth workers, police and other care providers, the municipality of Almere writes. NRC. Almere has also set up additional youth boas that identify risky behavior. At school and through social media campaigns, young people are informed about, among other things, subversion, peer pressure and the risks associated with placing explosives. Teachers are trained to de-escalate situations with violence and weapons.
In February A security measure introduced by Almere mayor Hein van der Loo was criticized by human rights organization Amnesty International, lawyers and professors, among others. The ban on gatherings, which has been in place in the city center since last month, does not seem to stop young people who sell drugs, organize violent confrontations and intimidate. Last month the police several times must take action against groups that did not comply with the measure.
Het Baken borders the zone where the ban applies. “The rioters are still walking around here in large groups and are not confronted by the police,” says the seventeen-year-old student. The measure will soon be evaluated for the first time, the municipality said.
Cobras and stabbings
At school, the three boys hear that students – on behalf of recruiters – deliver a package in Amsterdam for a few hundred euros, throw a cobra (illegal fireworks with the force of a hand grenade) at someone’s door or commit fraud. Central Netherlands Police confirms that these types of “jobs” do occur. The seventeen-year-old student says that his mother is afraid that he will also be ensnared. His two friends say their parents don’t want them hanging out late near the school.
Central Netherlands Police notice that young people are committing increasingly serious crimes. “The threshold for using a lot of violence is very low these days. Our concern is that young perpetrators are more financially driven than before to participate in criminal activities. Young people often threaten to place explosives near homes to end a conflict,” the police wrote. NRC.
You will have recruited someone within 48 hours
Stabbings? The students of Het Baken are no longer even surprised by this. A student was slightly injured after a stabbing incident near the school last month. “The gangs [middelbare scholieren in Almere die voor ronselaars werken] “We just walk around with a knife in our pocket,” says a fifteen-year-old student (name known to the editors). He takes a sip from the can of Monster Energy that a friend hands him. “In any case” they know a few gang members who are at Het Baken. They do not feel protected by their school. Even the teachers are afraid, they think.
Last year, Het Baken sent an urgent letter to the municipality about the increasing criminal behavior among students. “We see with our own eyes how some students are literally taken away on their way home […]”, said Alan Turner, director of the school community, against RTL News.
No school board in Almere wants to comment on the current situation. The boards say they are waiting for a joint statement from the mayor, municipality and police. But both the mayor and the police indicate that they have not made any agreements about this.
Shopping street in the center of Almere.
Photo Ruchama van der Tas
‘Nothing to do’
“You have recruited someone within 48 hours,” says 29-year-old youth worker Jordi Blitz, from behind the wheel of a small red shared car. As a teenager he was recruited by a criminal from Almere. He has just come from Amsterdam, where he assisted a teenager in a lawsuit. He was once a suspect himself. “I was asked at a shopping center to sell ecstasy. With one call I had already earned 50 euros,” says Blitz. It turned out to be the beginning of a sliding scale. At the age of nineteen, he was sentenced to five years in prison for a series of armed robberies.
“Many young people in Almere feel that they have no purpose in their lives,” says Blitz. According to him, boredom and lack of perspective play a major role. Lamyn Belgaroui, care coordinator at the Moving Up Foundation, recognizes this. As in other cities with a lot of new construction, so-called third spaces: places for young people to come together, such as sports fields, music venues or parks, he says on the phone.
For the municipality, Belgaroui participated in a study into how Almere young people who are seen as prone to crime experience municipal policy and what they are missing in their neighborhood. According to the care coordinator, this is clear: the municipality must prevent crime by investing third spaces.
‘Loitering youth’ are, as it were, served to criminal recruiters. The municipality of Almere recognizes that the shortage third spaces plays a role. According to her, there is also a shortage of youth workers who can ‘actively fill’ such places with activities. The province of Flevoland does not want to make a statement about its most vulnerable region.
‘Pinnertjes’ on Snapchat
“They just add me on Snap,” says the seventeen-year-old student of Het Baken. The Central Netherlands Police sees that young people are indeed approached by criminal recruiters, on Snapchat, Telegram or gaming platforms. They are then seduced with photos of piles of money, expensive clothing or other luxury items.
According to 47-year-old Oswaldo Vriend, who recruited young people from Almere around the age of 20, a large and diffuse network is hidden behind the messages. “From neighborhood gangs, the mafia to sly nerds who recruit young people from behind the computer,” he says on the phone. Friend served nine years in prison for attempted manslaughter, public violence and drug trafficking. Now he is a youth worker It’s Never Too Latehis own foundation.
I knew how to recognize the most vulnerable young people
If young people have made their location public, for example via Snapchat, recruiters can easily pinpoint them. Or young people who have already been recruited recommend new “dealers” or “pinners” to the recruiters. [plegers van pinpasfraude]say the students of Het Baken. According to Blitz, recruiters often start online conversations innocently. “Where are you from?” they ask, for example. This is followed by a stream of questions until the recruiters have determined the home address.
Blitz, Vriend and the students see that young people with a dark skin color or migration background are most often recruited by criminals. “In Almere, this group has difficulty finding a job or internship. It is very attractive to earn a lot of money so quickly,” says Blitz. Recruiters also exploit the insecurity and lack of self-esteem of young people. They give them the idea that they matter. “I knew how to recognize the most vulnerable young people,” says Vriend. “Problems at home? You can make your parents’ debts disappear in an instant.”
Concrete benches
In January, fifty young people in Almere responded to decoy messages from the police on social media. In the messages, the police asked them to deliver a package or place an explosive. In response to their response, the young people received an informative message about the dangers of this. “And they were invited to discuss the criminal circuit,” says the Central Netherlands police.
Behind the school, near the concrete benches, that is where the students of Het Baken are approached most by the recruiters. In the past two years they have seen the police patrolling more and more. This does not make them feel safer, on the contrary: it gives the students the feeling that danger is constantly lurking. Officers regularly take students out of class. “A classmate was taken for fraud. He had defrauded the elderly,” says the seventeen-year-old student. The group of friends laughs. “Two days later he was sitting next to me again, as if nothing had happened.”
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