The number of crimes in the Netherlands fell for the fourth year in a row last year and the Dutch are feeling increasingly safe in their communities, national statistics office CBS said on Wednesday.

The statistics agency bases its claim on research involving 81,000 people from all over the country who were asked about violent crime, vandalism and theft. The figures also include crimes which were not reported to the police and so give a more accurate view of the actual amount of crime.

The CBS report shows that since 2012, recorded crime has gone down by 20% while the actual crime rate has shrunk by 13%. Vandalism showed the biggest drop.

The crime rate is higher in the four big cities than the country at large and the drop has been sharpest in the east and south of the country.

Reporting

The police registered some 900,000 property and violent crimes last year, but according to the CBS, there were some 4.4 million offences. This highlights the lack of willingness to report crimes, criminologist Marc Schuilenburg told broadcaster NOS.

The reluctance stems from a lack of faith that the police will solve the crime and the fact that many crimes are now solved without police involvement. ‘If you spot a weird transaction on your bank account, you don’t go to the police, you phone your bank,’ he said.

The survey also shows that people are feeling safer. In 2012, 37% said they sometimes feel unsafe but this had fallen slightly to 35% last year.

Asked if they felt unsafe in areas where large groups of youths hang around, four in ten people said they did. But this is down from 44% in 2012, the CBS said.