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Obsessed with defining differences

Thursday 18 September 2008

You really do have to wonder about a minister who thinks that registering the ethnic origins of criminals can be done in a 'neutral' way and will help combat discrimination.

Crooks are already registered according to age, nationality, sex and place of birth. But apparently this means that second generation immigrants – those born and bred here with Dutch passports – disappear in the statistics.

And boy, we do need to know where all those criminal Dutch people really come from, don't we. We've got to know who to blame.

All the information already available suggests that youths with a Moroccan or Antillean background are over-represented in the crime statistics. We already know that.

We also know they are more likely to be unemployed, live in poor housing, have a lower standard of education – and to drop out if they do go to college.

Surveys have shown us that Moroccans don't like cycling, are more likely to use public transport and suffer from asthma.

We even know they prefer to use cash than direct debit cards and clean their teeth for longer than the native Dutch. OK, Sidelines made that last one up, but someone somewhere is probably doing a survey on it.

The point being that here in the Netherlands we seem to be obsessed with defining our differences. Lets try getting tough on the causes of crime instead.

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