Last June, officials from the Ministry of Justice and Security were presented with the presentation ‘The image of crime in the Netherlands in 2025’. The presentation – intended for the punishment and protection department of the ministry – starts with a cartoon of Fokke and Sukke. The cartoon characters read in the newspaper that the Netherlands has ‘eight percent fewer registered crimes’ and conclude that the registration with the National Police must therefore be a mess.
After that beginning, the policy adviser who gives the presentation serves a graph with the core message: “The total number of registered crimes fell by 43 percent between 2002 and 2024.” Also in the remainder of the presentation, which online statethe audience is frequently pointed out of the decrease in, among other things, power and violence crime.
The presentation, which also states effective interventions, ends with the conclusion that there is “a long -term fall in crime” in the Netherlands. And with that, the policy advisor of the Ministry, a perspective that has frequently passed by science, politics and media in recent years.
This Wednesday, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) will come out with a fundamentally different message: the years of decrease in crime in the Netherlands have ended. From about the turn of the century, crime decreased considerably, but since 2018 that decline has not continued – except for a coronadip. In recent years there has even been an increase in traffic and sexual crimes, among other things.
The CBS publication does not fall out of the air. This is because it is based on crime registered by the police, population investigation into victimization, judicial judgments, decisions of the Public Prosecution Service and hospital admissions: all data that were already public. According to the CBS, that crime is no longer falling, however, an important trend. That is why the organization has decided to combine the already known figures and to present them in a new publication in conjunction, so a spokesperson explains.
Asset crimes
The fact that crime is no longer falling since 2018 is evident from figures about violent crimes, vandalism, drug offenses and wealth crimes. In particular, the latter category – which includes theft, burglary, fraud and scams – is important because about half of all registered crime consists of power criminals.
And although Statistics Netherlands points to explanations for the drop in crime of the past decades such as aging (the elderly commit fewer crimes) and a decrease in drug use related bicycle thefts and car burglaries (stealing addicts to pay for their use), lets CBS in the middle why the decrease has stopped. When asked, the Statistics Organization states that it is up to other scientists to investigate this.
In the research published on Wednesday, Statistics Netherlands also highlights that there is an increase in a number of offenses including traffic offenses, sexual and arms crimes.
The rise in traffic crimes can also be explained by a change in the law that the police have given the opportunity to test for drugs in traffic with a saliva test since 2017.
In addition, the CBS suspects that social attention to sexual violence, for example, as a result of the abuses at The Voice of Holland plays a role in the willingness to report and therefore registration of sexual crimes.
The police registration policy also plays a role in the increase. If several offenses are committed with each other, such as a street robbery with a firearm, not only the heaviest offense (the street robbery) but also the illegal firearm possession has been noted for seven years.
According to the CBS, the fact that crime no longer falls under the line is not related to a new way of registering by the police. In fact, victim surveys also show that the decrease in crime has stopped. And that means that, according to the Statistics Office, only a conclusion is possible. “A long decrease in crime does indeed seem to end.”