Farmers and gardeners turn more often for help to keep crime at bay. This is the conclusion of LTO Noord one year after introducing a new approach. This is aimed at putting a stop to increasing crime in rural areas.
The farmers’ interest group appointed Gaby de Ruiter as a confidential counselor. She is the point of contact for farmers who are in trouble or have found themselves in trouble. They can contact her for information, prevention and other help.
More than two thousand farmers and gardeners showed up at the fifty meetings last year, with crime in rural areas as the theme. They shared more than two hundred experience stories. “Drug crime is an everyday occurrence in rural areas,” says De Ruiter. “That is unfortunately the reality and that realization is becoming more and more clear.”
The confidential counselor was found more and more often over the course of the year, LTO calculated. A total of 31 cases were received. The majority were related to drugs (40 percent) or theft/burglary (40 percent). A smaller percentage had to deal with threats and/or intimidation.