Youth groups and street gangs in the Netherlands

Introduction Youth groups have been present in the Netherlands in various appearances during the last three decades, and some of these could be considered gangs. Some of these groups have received a lot of media attention. For example, groups of Moroccan boys, emerging since the mideighties, are known to cause a lot of nuisane and to get into conflict easily with other people in their direct neighbourhood environment (Van Gemert 1998b; De Jong 2007). In the earlynineties, urban minority youth, mostly from Surinamese or Antillean descent, started to imitate American west-coast street gangs and call themselves Crips and Bloods (Van Gemert 1998a, 2001; Van Stapele 2003). From the mid-nineties, groups of native Dutch youths with sympathies for the extreme right (formerly called ‘Lonsdale groups’ after a popular fashion brand) received some attention and some of them have been mentioned in relation to anti-migrant actions such as arson of mosques (Homan 2000; Van Donselaar 2005; Van Donselaar & Rodrigues 2004, 2006). Apart from these three very visible, but quite different, examples, there are many other groups of young people who spend a lot of time in public places and who are more or less involved in criminal behaviour or nuisance. They are often less distinctive and remain under the radar of the media, but also represent an important part of the gangs and youth groups in the Netherlands. In recent years, youth groups involved in nuisance and crime have become a priority for the Dutch police and government. In May 2011, the Dutch Minister of Security and Justice ministry launched the ‘Delinquent Youth Groups Action Program’. This program had two objectives. First, within two years measures will be taken to tackle all 89 criminal youth groups that were identified in November 2010 (cf. Ferwerda & Van Ham 2011). Second, the approach to tackle troublesome and nuisance groups will be intensified (EUCPN 2012: 34-37). This contribution will describe developments of youth groups and street gangs in the Netherlands in the last three decades. The focus will be on those groups that are covered by the consensus definition of the Eurogang Program of Research, a network of gang researchers in European countries and the United States (see e.g. Klein et al., 2001; Decker & Weerman, 2005; Van Gemert et al., 2008; Weerman et al., 2009; Esbensen & Maxson, 2012). This consensus definition describes a street gang as: “any durable, street-oriented youth group whose involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity”. The description does not add up to a monolith picture: the street gang problem in the Netherlands has many faces and facets. Not only do youth groups and street gangs in the Netherlands vary in many respects, different research approaches and perspectives also focus on various aspects and features of these groups. We will start by presenting a general overview of three decades of Dutch research on gangs and youth groups Next, we will draw a picture of the volume and characteristics of the street gang phenomenon in the Netherlands. In the final paragraph we will comment on Dutch policies on street gangs and youth groups.