Ten thousand suspects of violence against people with public duties

ANP Demonstrators and police on Museumplein in January 2021

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 06:00

According to the Public Prosecution Service, almost 10,000 people were guilty of violence against people with a public task last year.

In 2022, the Public Prosecution Service counted more than 9900 suspects of violence against, for example, police officers, boas and ambulance employees. This is a slight increase compared to 2019, when the Public Prosecution Service registered 9,500 suspects.

It usually involves verbal aggression, such as name-calling or threatening. According to the Public Prosecution Service, one in three suspects used physical violence.

“The number of cases is fairly constant. But the seriousness of the offenses that have been reported has increased slightly,” says Lisan Wösten, deputy chief public prosecutor in Rotterdam and responsible for tackling this type of violence at the Public Prosecution Service.

Higher punishments

Violent examples are the harassment of riot police in ‘s-Gravendeel during the turn of the year and the throwing of a mortar bomb at police officers and security guards at the Johan Cruijff Arena.

To tackle such violence, the Public Prosecution Service has the option to demand significantly higher sentences and a tit-for-tat policy is applied as much as possible.

For example, a man is on trial today who allegedly assaulted, threatened and insulted a police officer in Brunssum last weekend.

The police summoned the man to leave, after which, according to the Public Prosecution Service, he punched one of the officers. “I will destroy you and I know where you live,” the suspect also threatened. He’s stuck to the seat.

Rioters

Most of the violence is directed against police officers and boas, but employees of other emergency services, civil servants, staff of housing associations, healthcare workers, conductors and referees also report themselves as victims.

According to Wösten, the suspects are partly “notorious rioters” who seek confrontation, but also people with a mental disorder who threaten or attack aid workers.

“There is also a group that threatens or uses violence in a personal crisis situation. Think of someone who thinks that the ambulance staff is not getting along enough. These are usually people who go wrong once.”

Task for employers

According to Wösten, there is an important task for employers to reduce the number of incidents. “They must create a safe working climate and propagate that they will not put up with it if someone touches their employees. I sometimes see that an organization has 100 reports of incidents, but only 10 reports have been made.”

Reporting makes sense, she emphasizes. “These cases have priority. The number of acquittals is lower and the sentences are higher than average.”

Last year, 58 percent of the suspects had to answer to court. The rest of the cases were settled by the Public Prosecution Service itself, often with a fine. Overall, 16 percent of cases were dropped, mostly due to lack of evidence.

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