When police officer Willem Taalen tells colleagues about his work, he usually first shows them a video, picked from the internet: a teenager boy sitting on a bench, all other boys around him. They call him: “Say” Sorry, King Kas “! Say” Sorry, King Luuk “!” The boy does not want, or does not understand, and Weert off. The others hit and kick him. Then they force him to crawl like a dog: “Bark! Make bark!” Save and kick again, until the boy can eventually run away.
Most police officers who see the video recognize the abuse as the criminal offense. But Taalen uses the video to illustrate what he is doing: discrimination. The crowd had just taken this boy on the grain because he was an outsider at their school. He was scolded for ‘Downie’ and beaten because of his handicap.
On July 1, Article 44bis of the Criminal Code will come into effect, in which discrimination as an aggravating fact is laid down – also called hate crime named. Language has been working for a few years at the Expertise Center Approach Discrimination of the Police, where he systematically views reports in the police system with eleven other colleagues. Every two weeks they get a printout of all the reports that contain keywords that may indicate discrimination. “Those are between 100 and 200 reports per unit. And there are ten units in the Netherlands.” Is a case a meaningful element of discrimination? Then Language can call his contacts at the relevant police unit to get the discrimination aspect in the spotlight. “Look carefully again at that neighborly fight. Call that report about a fight again.”
Do police officers don’t find it annoying, if a colleague calls from Amsterdam or may have overlooked something in a report? Sometimes, says Taalen. But he mainly sees that colleagues appreciate that someone helps them look. According to him, that is the essence of his task: showing the disruptive effect of discrimination.
Cluster
The reporting on the official discrimination reports of 2024 was published on Thursday. Taalen finds the figures difficult to interpret. The number of reports to the municipal anti-discrimination facilities doubled between 2023 and 2024, although wide, from 6,351 to 14,796. But, says Taalen, “They have led a campaign and have become more visible.”
“Look carefully again at that neighborly fight. Call that report about a fight again.”
Then the figures are also influenced by ‘cluster temperings’. “If a minister calls something about Islamic youth on television, then many angry people will find their way to Discriminatie.nl,” says Taalen. Champion-boosmaking 2024 was, according to the report TV personality Johan Derksen, who said about a black MP from Friesland: “But that is not a Frisian, come on.” This resulted in 1,100 reports to the anti-discrimination facilities.
Good that it is looked at, says Taalen, just like discriminatory slogans during demonstrations. “That’s terrible.” But those are also the matters of group insult that justice is already tackling well. Taalen, on the other hand, requires attention for everyday matters. For the abuse by someone who no longer tolerates it that she is always called names for her origins. For the boy of fifteen, who has just got out of the closet and is beaten, spit and threatened.
Registration
At the Northern Netherlands unit they did not immediately find an interpretation for a vacancy for contact person discrimination. Then Taalen picked up the work there. In a memorandum for, among other things, the unit leadership about ‘the practice of a discrimination detective 2024’, he recorded some of his own affairs – with fictitious names.
A case about ‘Jessica’, for example, who cycled with her husband and two small children when a man came in a company car next to them, opened his window and started to swear her husband. “Dirty cancer black, see where you drive!” “He doesn’t understand Dutch,” said “Jessica.” Her children got scared and started to cry, and she asked the man to hold back a bit. Then his aggression focused on her. “You have to shut up! You are a dirty cancer whore, you have been faltered by that dirty black.” She noted the license plate of the car.
This is a difficult report for police officers, says Taalen. “Because: what happened completely? Someone has been called. Yes, but at the same time a burglary has been reported elsewhere in the region, or a theft. And the police are already struggling with a staff shortage. And then there is always the chance that the public prosecutor says: we will not prosecute.”
But that is not always necessary, explains Taalen. Criminal law is not for any case of discrimination the solution. “But if I was the local police officer there, I would like to know what exactly happened to that incident. Then you might be able to use the license plate to the boss of that angry man and ask if he likes that his company is on that car, with such an outburst of aggression associed.
Meaningful settlement
Even more important, says Taalen, is that you give the victims of discrimination the feeling that someone is taking them seriously, and that they are being believed. At the police they call that ‘meaningful settlement’ of a report. It starts with desk staff, says Taalen, the first contact for citizens with the police. But it continues from the detective to the chief of police.
According to Taalen, it is ‘enormously undermining’ for a society if the police do nothing about this. “It leads to discord. People no longer trust each other. And it generally makes police work more difficult. If we do not do anything about this, you will not gain any confidence among those citizens for other matters. What is at stake is legitimacy. Legitimacy of the government. And in this case: the legitimacy of the police.”