to the Netherlands where you have all chance? 5. You think that I should respect you, because of the colour of your skin, your religion, your beliefs and values….CAN I ASK YOU WHERE YOUR RESPECT FOR MY COUNTRY, MY CULTURE, MY BELIEFS AND MY VALUES?
Before we address how police worldwide have been implicated in running, demolishing and providing protection for brothels, assaulting sex workers, border control and deporting or incarcerating foreign women let us go back to the Netherlands. The reality is that no amount of police (intervention) will ever eradicate crime. The police force in the Netherlands consisted of 20.000 men during WW2. [source] Their distribution of police agents shifted after the war and it was cleansed, and reformed again and again until 1994; the KLPD (National Police Force) is formed. The Netherlands is not a police state and even though the army, Marechaussee and Justice system have to answer to the same government, they’ll stay somewhat separate.
From the 1960s onward the Dutch police are most afraid of drugs traffic, terrorism and (integration of) immigrants, often with an Islamic background.2
Living today means,
2020, The Dutch police consists of ten regional units, the National Unit and the Police Services Center. It counts approximately 50,400 officers. [source] That means 295 police officers per 100,000 people, one officer for 339 people. There’s quite a lot of blue on the Dutch streets. Their basic tasks are wide in range; daily surveillance (making sure no one sprays graffiti and watching young people leave the bars at holiday locations in the summer3), warning others and tipping them off, helping (Domestic violence? Abuse? Fire in a private house? The police helps.4), enforcement (addressing noise disturbance), everything that has to do with traffic, and research. The police have ‘special’ tasks too. Police investigations (done by the Dienst Landelijke Recherche (DLR)) look into matters of human trafficking, the creation and sales of drugs, terrorism and online crime. The Dienst Landelijke Informatieorganisatie (DLIO) deals with information and data, they work often together with Europol and Interpol. The Dienst Speciale Interventies (DSI) is the police and the army combined, who tackle life-threatening situations. The Dienst Koninklijke en Diplomatieke Beveiliging (DKDB) makes sure that the king, princesses, and sometimes mayors, councillors and judges are safe and secure from threats. The Dienst Infrastructuur (Dinfra) consists of the railway-, traffic-, aviation- and water police. The Dienst Landelijke Operationele Samenwerking (DLOS) makes sure that they all work together, and the Dienst Landelijk Operationeel Centrum (DLOC) guides them all.
A Dutch police agent on the street carries pepper spray, a PVC baton, a gun (Walther, P99Q NL), handcuffs, teargas, a flashlight, a portable phone, latex gloves and special units carry in addition to the gun, a semi-automatic machine gun too.
What would you do?
Again I quote a scenario depicted in a school presentation distributed for children by the Dutch police.
“Emergency line, 112, do you want to speak with police, fire brigade or ambulance?” A man sounds uncontrollably: “police! “.
The operator answering the phone wants to know what exactly is going on.
“I see a gun, a boy is holding a gun! I am in the city and I see four boys, now. I do not know whether they have guns too. This is scary.”
Imagine that you are a police agent receiving a notification from the emergency room—four boys armed. You take your bullet-free vest and drive to the scene. A few minutes later, you and your colleagues arrive. Four suspects aged around 16 are standing in a public square. One of the kids has blood on his forehead. Then what?
(here, there’s no indication whatsoever about the way the boys look, nor your knowledge of what they are supposed to look like. Other than the location, you know nothing. This text doesn’t give any sign of a gun visible at this point.)
A) They are only children. I tiptoe towards them, trying to chat and connect with them.
B) I pull out my