More Dutch councils arming street wardens

While police face budget cuts around the country, local authorities are hiring an increasing number of street wardens – civil servants with powers of investigation known as BOAs – the AD said on Friday.

Typically, the street wardens deal with dog droppings, litter and parking violations. However, their exact role varies from city to city and in some they are increasingly being used as subsitute police officer.

In Drachten, for example, the BOA is a ‘street host,’ providing information to citizens. In Amsterdam the BOA in a public order enforcer, and stands guard at nightlife hot spots.

Weapons

Some 40% of municipalities reported that their wardens were targets of abuse in the last year. For that reason, 13 councils are planning to arm them with batons, pepper spray, handcuffs, and bulletproof vests.

The police see this as a dangerous development. ‘In this country we agreed that the monopoly on violence lies with the police and defense forces. If that changes we run the risk that the less experienced wardens get into trouble and make mistakes,’ police union chairman Geert Priem told the AD.

A police spokesperson also told AD that wardens should continue to focus on small infringements of the law, saying that they are ‘insufficiently trained for the diversity and complexity of maintaining public order.’

Uneven expansion

Sixteen municipalities plan to hire more of these officers this year, but some rural areas and nature reserves say they don’t have enough ‘green’ BOAs.

Managers of these reserves and landowners say that without more wardens, these areas become black spots for poaching, drug use, and illegal dumping.

‘There is a gap in surveillance…[and] criminals know exactly where this control is missing’ said Jacob Slater, a spokesperson from De Hoge Veluwe nature reserve.