The number of teenagers committing serious crimes rose for a second consecutive year in 2025, the public prosecution service (OM) has reported, marking a 20% rise since 2023 in violent offences and robberies among adolescents as young as 12.

The figures, part of the OM’s annual report, showed a 5% rise in minors (aged 12 to 17) accused of crimes including robberies, possession of explosives, arson, threats, false imprisonment, and attempted or actual murder and manslaughter.

The 2024 figure had already jumped 14% on 2023, even as adult suspects for the same offences fell 4%.

An increase in cases of fatal and near-fatal violence against women was also recorded.

Not a crime wave

The OM called the trend a “concerning development”, although it noted the overall number of juvenile suspects of any crime remains well below the levels recorded between 2000 and 2018.

National statistics agency CBS reported in March that overall youth crime in the Netherlands has been falling since 2022. Serious crimes, however, have risen.

Prosecutors noted criminal networks were increasingly recruiting minors to plant firework bombs, extract drugs from shipping containers and deliver drugs.

Europol reported last month that 280 people had been arrested over the past year for hiring youngsters to commit violent crimes – including Dutch teenagers used in jobs as far away as Hamburg.

Separate CBS research published in April found that one in five drug runners in Dutch ports is now a teenager.

Femicide attempts up

The number of suspects in murder, attempted murder and manslaughter cases with female victims rose from 73 in 2024 to 82 in 2025, the OM said.

Within that total, the number of fatal cases fell from 24 to 15, while attempts and preparation acts rose from 49 to 67. The wider category in this year’s report – which now includes preparation acts as well as attempts – is one reason for the rise. In 43 of the 82 cases the suspect came from within the victim’s domestic circle.

The figures are likely an undercount, the prosecutors say, because they exclude cases in which perpetrators died and could not be taken to court. This is only the second year the OM has published femicide-related figures separately, so no longer trend can yet be drawn.

The OM said it was investing extra resources in operational capacity for domestic violence cases and had launched a new approach to evidence-gathering in strangulation attempts in 2025 – describing strangulation as a “red flag for femicide”.

ICT hack still felt

The OM took in around 181,700 criminal cases in 2025 and handled roughly 200,000. About 9,000 lighter cases, mostly without an identifiable victim, were still outstanding at year-end as a result of last summer’s ICT breach, which forced the OM to disconnect its systems from the internet for several months.