The police will conduct preventive searches again from October. This is again a trial to see whether the drug can be used permanently. The searches take place in five areas.
Mayor Halsema announced this in a letter to the city council on Wednesday. It is not yet known which areas are involved, they are determined on the basis of, among other things, the number of weapon incidents, the feeling of safety of residents and the number of victims of weapon incidents.
According to Halsema, neighborhood teams of the police and the city districts will have more say in the designation of those areas. This is how the police can do it ‘hot times’ and ‘hot places‘ to call. The Triangle, mayor, chief commissioner and chief public prosecutor, ultimately determines which areas it will be.
Halsema emphasizes again that the checks are arbitrary. It was previously announced that detection gates are being used. Today’s letter also refers to a ‘selection column’, which is used for some inspections. “In the case of the selection column, passers-by are led past the selection column, which indicates at random whether or not the person in question should be searched by means of an integrated ‘dice effect’.”
This is for a period of three months from October. A total of 25 weapons checks are held. The previous test found September 2021 place† Because it appeared during the first trial that half of the respondents were not aware of the controls, the municipality and city districts will communicate about it.
“This period was chosen because during these ‘dark months’ relatively many high impact crimes (such as street robbery and burglary) are committed and the chance that people are carrying weapons therefore increases,” Halsema writes. “In this way, the follow-up to the trial is expected to provide sufficient research picture to be able to make a final decision about the use of the instrument.”
A majority of the city council has voted against the trial several times. GroenLinks, for example, found that designating areas, for example can be stigmatizing. Because of the criticism, civilian observers were deployed during the previous trial, but that is not the case this year.