Police shelved 10,000 serious crime reports, auditor finds

Police failed to act on more than 10,000 reports of serious crime in 2024, about a quarter of all such reports filed that year, the Court of Audit (Algemene Rekenkamer) has found.

Among the cases left unhandled were hundreds the government had formally marked as investigation priorities, including 550 violent offences, 200 sexual offences and 100 organised crime cases.

Around 7,000 of the reports were rejected outright and a further 3,000 were opened but dropped for lack of detective capacity at the police or the public prosecution department (OM), the auditor said in a report published on Thursday.

The rest were lower-priority serious crimes, among them 3,450 serious thefts and offences such as identity fraud, arson and blackmail. The Court classed crimes as serious using a harm index based on the average prison sentence handed to first-time offenders.

No view of the results
The report’s wider conclusion was that neither the police, the justice minister nor parliament can see how the money spent on investigation is used or what it achieves.

The police hold no results on data on the 11,500 large investigations run by more than 12,300 detectives, and for about three-quarters of investigative work there is no record of what was done or why.

Nor can the police break its budget down by task: of the €8.1 billion it spent on its statutory duties in 2024, the Court estimates €3.3 billion went on investigation, but says the police cannot produce the actual figure. That leaves the minister unable to steer spending and undermines parliament’s right to control the budget, it warned.

Priorities and areas
The priorities set for the police only partly match the most harmful crimes, the Court added. The minister prioritises cybercrime and the OM prioritises offences such as shoplifting and drug possession, all of which rank low to mid on the harm index.

Where a crime is reported also matters. The Rotterdam unit rejected 19% of serious-crime reports outright, against 12% in Oost-Nederland and 11% in Limburg, while cases dropped later for lack of capacity were most common in Limburg.

As specialist detective units become overloaded, serious crimes are increasingly passed to local neighbourhood teams, which the Justice and Security Inspectorate concluded last year are not equipped for such complex work.

Minister disputes the figure
Justice and security minister David van Weel acknowledged that improvements were needed but called the 10,000 figure “a distorted picture”, arguing it counted informal tip-offs alongside formal complaints, according to broadcaster NOS. Some changes were already under way, he said.

Court of Audit board member Ewout Irrgang called the minister’s “defensive” response disappointing and urged him to convene the parties quickly. “The police can’t do everything, but you would want the most serious cases to be picked up,” he said.