Just over a fifth of Drenthes between the ages of 15 and 25 have become victims of traditional crime in 2021. This is evident from figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.
Traditional crime includes violent crimes, property crimes such as theft or fraud and vandalism. Drenthe (22 percent) is approximately at the national average of 24 percent. Groningen had the most victims in percentage terms in 2021 (29 percent), while Friesland had the fewest at 19 percent.
Adults are less likely to be victims of traditional crime than young people: 16 percent of adults have been confronted with this.
In 40 percent of cases, young victims of violent crimes know the perpetrator. For victims of abuse, it is mainly fellow students who commit the violence (9 percent); when threatened with physical violence, neighbors are most often named as perpetrators (7 percent); and in sexual crimes the perpetrator is relatively often a boyfriend or girlfriend (12 percent).
The consequences for young victims are dire. Young victims appear to feel unsafe in their own living environment more than twice as often as young people who have not been victims. Only three in ten victims tell the police what happened to them. Most of the reasons given for this are ‘because they didn’t think about it’ or ‘they didn’t think it was important’.