Fewer people are victims of crime in NL, but online offences are rising slightly

The number of people in the Netherlands who are victims of ‘traditional’ crime continues to fall, but there has been a rise in online criminality, national statistics office CBS said on Tuesday.

In total, 17% of over-15s say they were the victim of a crime last year, compared with 21% in 2019. Of them, 15% said they had fallen prey to an online crime, such as phishing, hacking, cyber bullying and fraud. That is a rise of two percentage points on 2019.

Theft and burglary rates have gone down the most over the past 10 years – with recorded mugging, home burglary and pick-pocketing offences falling 71%, 74% and 85% respectively.

The number of reported violent crimes also fell by 25% over the same period. By contrast, the number of people who fell victim to online crime is up 22% since 2017.

The CBS said that people have also become more reluctant to report crimes to the police, with willingness to register an offence going down by 20% between 2012 and 2021. But there has been no change since 2019, the CBS said.

In total, there was a 43% drop in the number of people saying they had been the victim of a crime over the past 10 years, while the number of official crime reports made to the police has fallen by 52% since 2012, the CBS said.

The registered crime figures come from police reports, the rest from CBS research involving 173,000 people.

The reduction in crime rates is reflected across the country, the CBS said. Amsterdam remains the most crime-prone city, with some 27% of inhabitants saying they were the victim of a crime last year. But that is down from nearly 43% in 2012.