Did you know that synthetic drug production can smell like anise? Does your child suddenly have new, expensive things, such as a watch or trendy shoes, but you don’t understand how he or she paid for them? Are your neighbors renovating and are large items such as boilers and barrels being brought in?
From this week onwards, the government is emphatically calling on citizens themselves in the fight against undermining crime. Mocro Mafiadirector Achmed Akkabi has been hired to make three realistic films of suspicious situations. “Discover how to recognize criminal activity and what you can do,” is the message of the videos that can be seen on television, internet and social media from this week.
On the website houmisdaaduitjebuurt.nl there are dozens of examples of suspicious situations in the neighborhood, at work or in private life. The site also contains advice on what citizens can do: go to the police or Report Crime Anonymously walking, discussing with neighbors whether they also find a situation suspicious or having a conversation with your child about that expensive watch “during a walk or doing the dishes”.
Jerry cans
The ‘Strange or Suspicious’ campaign comes from a new partnership in which police, justice, municipalities and other parties have united to involve citizens more in the fight against subversion. “Making citizens competent,” is how Minister of Justice David van Weel (VVD) described it last week. He kicked off the campaign in a warehouse in The Hague among the jerry cans, blue barrels and other paraphernalia from a drug lab.
All this could give the impression that Dutch people, when confronted with suspicious situations, sit on their hands. The opposite is the case. Report Crime Anonymous passes on tens of thousands of reports to investigative services every year. In 2023, more than half – 11,819 tips, 32 convictions per day – were drug-related. Those tips from 2023 led to the detection of 3,120 suspects and the seizure of 1,255 weapons.
Mark Janssen of the reporting center believes the awareness campaign is essential. “We are still surprised, for example by drug labs in the middle of residential areas,” he said, referring to the explosion in South Rotterdam that killed three people a year ago.
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Bakermat
The Netherlands has a pivotal role in the international drug trade. This role manifests itself in all kinds of ways in society: from explosions in residential areas to ‘money laundering shops’ and drug labs. It is an important transit and production country, is considered the cradle of global ecstasy production and plays an important role in crystal meth production. In addition, in the past ten years the Netherlands has become the distribution country for the European cocaine trade – the drug arrives via the port of Rotterdam, among other places.
Expensive clothing and drug labs: investigative agencies hope that citizens will report more often. Last week, Minister Van Weel gave an example from his younger years. He noticed that the neighbors’ windows had been taped up. He didn’t do anything with that. “While months later a drug lab was indeed busted.”
Afterwards you hear that people had noticed for a long time that something strange was going on
Although Van Weel’s story seems to be more about a cannabis plantation, he did express exactly the underlying problem: citizens know that something is wrong, but do not take action.
This applies not only to the city but also to the countryside, says forester Erik de Jonge. In 2021, he discovered the largest ‘drug pit’ in the Netherlands in the Brabantse Wal, full of dumped chemicals. “Afterwards you hear that people in the area had noticed for a long time that something strange was going on. If only they had called.”
Driving force
The question is whether the campaign has a chance of success. José Kerstholt, professor of psychological decision-making at the University of Twente and TNO, investigated how citizens can be encouraged to report undermining crime more often. “You have to know, be able to do it and also want to do it,” is how she summarizes the core of the research.
And the ‘Strange or Suspicious’ campaign focuses primarily on awareness: ‘knowing’, Kerstholt notes: citizens are taught to recognize signals of subversion. It also contains a ‘can’ component, because it points out what citizens can do.
“However, the most important driving force behind behavior is wanting,” says Kerstholt. On the one hand, this requires that people feel the urgency that undermining crime is tackled. On the other hand, they have a positive perception of the usefulness of a report: “People want to know that something is being done about it, that their efforts have results.”
People want to know that something will be done about their report, that their efforts will have results
Both are not central to the campaign, but do play a role in the police’s underlying problem analysis. “We see a reluctance to report strange things,” says Hanneke Ekelmans, who is responsible for tackling undermining within the National Police leadership. “While people do want safety in their own neighborhood. Then it is very helpful to report anything you find strange.”
Ekelmans emphasizes that the police do do something with the reports. “The difficult thing is that we cannot always act immediately or say what we want [met een melding] have done. But for us it is extremely important to hear what stands out.”
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