Reports of children as young as 10 or 12 being exploited by drug gangs have sparked Dutch authorities to investigate new techniques to “recruit them back” before they become hardened criminals.
Ahead of its recent elections, politicians had warned the Netherlands was in a battle against “narcoterrorism” with reports of a wave of cocaine imports from South America.
While the number of minors suspected of a crime in the Netherlands has dropped since 2015, police are seeing more violent crimes committed by younger people, especially in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
In response, Gym owner Danny de Vries, a former “street kid” himself, is one of those involved in a Dutch attempt to try to rescue thousands of teenagers from pursuing a life of crime that is blamed on the record levels of drugs arriving in north-west Europe.
The Netherlands is investing €82m (£71m) a year to help 27 neighbourhoods prevent young people from becoming involved in drug-related crime. And from 2025, the government will invest €143m a year in youth crime prevention.
Part of this plan involves the use of “credible messengers”: people who don’t look like police or officials but have a good understanding of these adolescents’ circumstances to work with young people.
De Vries is working with 15 boys and men in the Dutch city of Utrecht whom authorities fear could turn towards crime. They train to become martial arts teachers for five hours a week at his gym in the city, with WhatsApp groups including parents and police to keep an eye on their movements.
“On the street, these kids have a certain status,” says De Vries. “Here, they are Mr Nobody. I tell them: pal, you think you’re tough but I have girls here who can knock you around. It works: they start again at nil and you raise them again. It sounds primitive, but it works.”
“Our ultimate goal is to recruit young people back from the hands of criminals, because for the hardened criminals they are just cannon fodder,” says Sharon Dijksma, mayor of Utrecht and a driving force in the campaign. “Repression alone can never be the answer. If you don’t reconnect this group of young people to your society, you can lock them up, but when they get free they will be lost beyond all help.”
Sitting in the Adamas music studio in Amsterdam-Noord, where one young man is working on a rap, is 32-year-old Menny, who grew up around crime in south-east Amsterdam, struggled at school and is one of the credible messengers.
“I had a lot of interventions as a kid, but I never had the feeling that they really helped me,” says Menny. “They tried their best with the tools they knew how to use. But this isn’t my work: it really is my life. These kids aren’t my clients: they are my brothers, my neighbours. When you bring them into your heart, they let you in and you can really make a change.”
Adamas founder, André Platteel, believes simple interventions can transform the destructive impact of childhood trauma. “The strength of the credible messengers is that it’s a network that’s available 24/7. A lot of the young people have an absent parent, and the role they take is often of a surrogate family member.”
Some say Dutch society needs to change as well, with ethnic minorities – overrepresented in crime statistics – facing discrimination in jobs, housing, education and sentencing.
“We simply can’t deny this, and if you work with these young people, you see it too, and they are angry about it – quite rightly,” says Thimo van der Pol, head of research at Inforsa, a mental health organisation that helps adults with psychiatric needs. “It is stigmatisation. So how can we give them the feeling that they aren’t fighting against the world but can take their place within it?”
Seasoned police policeman officer Gerard Zwarts, is part of a team going into that visits 500 schools a year with former prison inmates. He believes there are groups you can win back. “Every child wants to hear they are wanted, loved and safe – and if you don’t have this, things can go wrong,” he says. “But a child is a child, and these are our children.”
Criminologists are still studying whether all of these interventions, including the use of credible messengers, are scientifically effective.
Research published this month on an Amsterdam “Top 600” scheme of intervention for problem youth suggests that there is no measurable effect so far, although crime reporter Paul Vugts said this was not a reason to give up.
“We know that there are youngsters who want to become big players in, for instance, the drug economy. So they aren’t recruited necessarily: they are also motivated,” says Robby Roks, associate professor of criminology at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Dijksma acknowledges this. “We are not naive,” she says. “We won’t save everybody. But every young person you save is another one.”
