At the request of the NOS, the police provided estimates of the shortages in the coming years. This shows that the Northern Netherlands police will face a shortage of 45 police officers in 2024.
The police hoped to be back at full strength in 2025, but that turned out to be a utopia. That year the police in the North had 62 police officers too few. This will increase to 65 in 2026.
The Northern Netherlands police is not the only unit with too few people. Nationally, the police are heading for a shortage of more than 1,600 police officers in 2025. The National Unit (380) and the police in the Amsterdam (360) and The Hague (329) regions in particular will have to make do with relatively few people in 2025. There is also a significant shortage of 182 police officers in the eastern Netherlands, which includes Overijssel. Only in Limburg will things look good in 2025, where, according to the police forecast, there will be no shortage in that year.
There are several reasons why the police are unable to solve the capacity problems, NOS writes. First of all, there is an aging population. In the near future, approximately 1,500 police officers will retire every year.
These places are difficult to fill, because the labor market is crowded. There is a shortage on the labor market and therefore there is a lot of competition for potential police officers. The police aim, among other things, to attract lateral entrants, but this is only partially successful.
To fill gaps, police officers step in at other places. For example, local police officers work on other services to fill gaps in the planning. In addition, the police throughout the Netherlands have to work extra hard due to demonstrations. Many officers from other parts of the country joined in The Hague this year because of the demonstrations. Football matches also require a lot of staff, as does security during the Marengo trial surrounding the alleged organization of Ridouan Taghi.
In addition, there is a lot of illness and the police spend a lot of time on reports of confused people. That would be more than 100,000 per year.
Liesbeth Huyzer of the police department, the current problems are a legacy of the past. First the police had to deal with cutbacks, but later extra money became available. “Due to the erratic policy of dismantling and then rebuilding, we are lagging behind the facts,” she told NOS.
And the consequences of the capacity problems are major, according to Huyzer. “Reports are not filed because we always have a new priority,” she says. According to Huyzer, this will be at the expense of confidence in the police in the long term.