Policing In The Netherlands

Transcript of interview with Dr Auke van Dijk

SKN

Hello everyone, this is Susanne Knabe-Nicol from Police Science Dr with an exclusive interview for the Police Science Dr Magazine. Today, I'm speaking to Dr Auke van Dijk from the Dutch Police and we're going to speak about what policing is like in the Netherlands and some of the issues and developments that he's going to inform us about there. So, thank you very much Dr van Dijk for joining us today

AVD

Good to be here, thank you

SKN

Shall we get started with you maybe just telling us who you are what your background is and what your role is?

AVD

Traditionally, I've got a background in international relations and international political economy, and then I went on to a Dutch organisation for applied scientific research, became involved in a strategic advice council of government and within that position, the Dutch police asked me ‘Please help us make a new strategy’ and I did that. And I really like to do that. So, that's how I came to work with the police. They called me and they said ‘Well, wouldn't you like to work for us?’ And I said ‘Well what am I supposed to do in the police?’ And then the Chief at the time said ‘Well, you got to tell me what to think and you got to contradict me.’ So, I thought, well you know that sounds good. So, I joined the police, which is now I think 20 years ago.

My current role is a strategist, adviser of the chief constable and importantly, I'm always working on the connection with science and academia as an important part of my job. A year and a half ago, we started a new academic advice council, which is independent, and it's actually advising the chief constable and the advice is public as well. So, we publish it on our website and I think that is a really good thing to do for a big organisation like the police, to organise your connections with academia with science in such a way that you could be contradicted. So, basically, that's what I'm doing at the moment

SKN

I think it's such a fantastic thing for a leader of a large organisation with so much responsibility to say ‘Hey you, expert academic person, come in, check everything I do, contradict me when necessary, just to make sure we're doing the right thing’ I think the world would be a better place if all leaders would do that and I'm thinking of political heads, I'm thinking lead leaders of large organizations I think that's fantastic that this happened 20 years ago and that you're still managing to maintain that role. Obviously, there must have been changes in the police leadership, but the new leader hasn't gotten rid of you, so I think that's really exemplary to have this kind of concept. Are there any main achievements that you could pull out from your work of contradicting and questioning what the police leadership are doing?

AVD

Obviously you're right, things changed a lot the last 20 years because also Dutch policing changed a lot and we'll speak about that maybe later, but we've become a national police force and we used to be a regionalised police force, so that makes a big difference, obviously. So, we've got a bigger organisation now, but if I look back on the way things make most impact - so it's actually two routes I think.

One is giving direct contrarian advice at the moment that it’s needed most. And it's important to institutionalise beforehand, that you're actually allowed to have time with the executive team or with the chief constable at moments of – well, stress probably, because that's the time when obviously as a police leader, you will say ‘Yeah, yeah very interesting but not now‘. But that's the moment you need the advice most, so you got to institutionalise that. And there's been number of occasions that that has been very, very important.

The second way of doing this is actually by generating a space where you say well it's only about content, so our conversation is about content mainly and mainly related also to academic insight. So, you got to organise that. So, what we did for example is we made about some important issues strategic issues - not plans but investigations together with academia and with lots of scientists, but also together sometimes with citizens or other non-governmental groups, to come up with ideas of what these issues would look like, what it would mean for the role of policing. So, this could be about things like undermining of the rule of law by criminal organisations, it was also about public nuisance. An important project was about discrimination, ethnic profiling, and everything that comes with that and what it means for the legitimacy of the police. Whether these reports or initiatives had an impact, that varies a bit, because obviously you can't you determine the impact beforehand. So, you still got to be a bit lucky, but at least it's out there. And what I also noticed that sometimes when it doesn't have a direct impact, people can come back to it 10 years later, which I think is very interesting. So you got to be a bit patient as well.



SKN

Okay, that sounds great, I think the golden nugget for me in what you said there was, or one of them, was that the police chief might say to you ‘Yeah, yeah, it sounds good, but not now.’ You know too much pressure, too much going on and you saying ‘Actually, this is exactly why we need to do this now.’ I think that's really valuable and like I said we should all have a person like you. We did, in the Met, we had a relatively new development, that we had a chief scientific officer who was Professor Lawrence Sherman, he left the position now, I don't think he has been replaced, so we have made an attempt, but we still have a way to go there.

AVD

Before that, there was Betsy Stanko also in a in a position like that, so the Met actually sort of did a good job on that in the beginning, but you know as we have seen also the last couple of years within the Met, it's very difficult maintain that position, especially in current times and so that is a risk. It's very difficult to maintain the position when the organisation is in general under pressure. There's political pressure, but there's also pressure because of austerity, and those are things that are not helping. All the more important that you try to keep this function and as you said, it shouldn't be only about policing but also about politics, and other actors that are very important in the functioning of the policing system. So so h's with the academic council, where we give our advice to the chief constable, because that was the only way to actually start make this council. But obviously, the adviadvice sers goes beyond that, almost every advice has also got a relation with politics, with policy, with law, so we try to address the wider stakeholders as well.

SKN

Okay, sounds good. Can you talk us through the structure of policing in the Netherlands and maybe leading into you mentioned the nationalisation, so you had different policing departments - I'm not sure what you would call them in the Netherlands, and then now it's a national force, can you talk us through the structure there, please?

AVD

Sure, so the Dutch system of policing is a mix between the French continental model which we inherited from the French in 1815, and next to that the sort of a love for the British policing model, so we have a mixed model, and what has always been very important in Dutch policing is, basically Dutch policing is local policing. So it used to be very, very localized with a very important role for the mayor and for the public prosecution, and they would come together with the police – and they still do – in something that's called the triangle, and this is where policing basically takes place. As you can imagine, it's very difficult to have a police force that is divided along all these municipalities, it used to be almost 500 municipalities. Nowadays, we've got less, but still 342 municipalities and they still have authority for basic policing. It used to be very local police and one national police force, which basically had a military style of policing. That changed, so in ‘93, the Dutch police became actually a regional organised police service So, nothing changed in the authority of the mayor and the public prosecution, but the police became a regionalised organisation. Which was good for policing at first, because it made policing more independent, more professional, and it was really a boost for the development of policing. But as you can imagine, the link with authority weakened a bit, because the police became bigger, and the way we organised authority still was on a localised basis. And I think politics was unhappy with that and I think it gave an impulse, but in the end, there was a problem with connection with politics - which led to the next reorganisation, which was a very, very big one, in which the Netherlands became one national service. This is in 2012, you can imagine everybody was really worried what it would do to local policing and the system was in organised in such a way that local authorities still were in place, but the police organisation became a national organisation, obviously leading also to more national political responsibility and attention. Nowadays, we've got a national police service, we've got 168 local units with 60 to 200 full-time equivalents. We've got 10 regional divisions and two national divisions. And as you can imagine, that is leading up to what happens if you become a national force or a national service, is that the way you run the service and where you put your resources and the way it's financed is far away from authority. Which leads to authority formally still having authority, but if decisions about finance, resources, capabilities are made at another level, that certainly erodes local authority, which also led to mayors not being too happy of their new position in the system. And although the system was meant to still be a local system as well, obviously what you see happening is that it's becoming much more of a national service with much more pressure from national politics.

SKN

What kind of consequences have you observed, what kind of impacts from the nationalisation good or bad?

AVD

I think an important issue is that everything about policing becomes a national and political issue. I underestimated that and it was interesting because the Police Scotland nationalised at the same time and they experienced exactly the same things we experienced in the Netherlands. So, it's a mechanism that is more generally valid. If national police or if national politics is looking at policing, even at local policing if there's a small incident, then the organisation becomes an organisation that looks more at national interest than at local interests, and the risk is that you neglect local policing. And in the end, that is the basis at least for the social legitimacy of policing, so you could really run into troubles there. So that is a risk I think of nationalisation. Another downside is that you just because a big organisation. I actually experienced that, the general saying that big organisations are more bureaucratic and I think that is the case, inevitably so. So, that has consequences and leads to, if you're not careful, to much more energy being invested in what we would call internal demand in organisational stuff, not exactly helping doing better policing, but just fighting your turf wars within the organisation. Now this is not specific for a police organisation, it's just how big organisations work. But it's difficult within policing, especially if you're still interested in providing local policing as well. So, there are some of the down sides of nationalisation. Only positive sides, I think in the Netherlands it was inevitable that we nationalised, we're a small country, we've got 18 million inhabitants and about 66,000 police, we're a small country in a very big world. So, coming with you digitisation, internationalisation, all these developments, geopolitical developments as well, obviously you need to have a nationally organised force, specifically for dealing with international issues. So what I liked to say when we reorganised, was saying ‘Well, we're becoming a national police, but the national level is not too important. Make sure you focus on international and local, because those are the two levels that are still very important in a globalised world.’ But you know it's difficult to maintain that perspective. So, you really got to work hard to do that because from an organisational point of view, obviously everybody's going to look at the national level and that can lead to be can be bad policing, I think.

SKN

I know you said that it was inevitable, but I don't think I've heard you give us a positive point - could I tease out of you whether you think it was better to nationalise or would it have been better to stay with a regional setup?

AVD

No, as I said, the problem with the regional setup was that the connection with politics and authority was not strong enough anymore, and obviously, in that time, with the coming of the network and information society, everybody realised, at the same time you got to be more local and more global. So no, I wouldn't have been in favour of staying a regional force, I think I am in favour of getting to a national force, but you got to be really, really persistent in making sure that the local level is one of your main priorities. On the other hand, the other things that could be said as positive things for having one national organisation are just the obvious things around management. You can specialise easily, you can buy your equipment as a national service, your human resources are organised at a national level. So, that is all very good and helps and heightens the quality. So, it's a bit like in healthcare where you also for example, if you need to come up with specialised functions, you need to concentrate and you need to be a bigger organisation to actually make that happen. So, no, I wouldn't have said well ‘Please let us stay a regional service’, no.

SKN

Thank you, can we have a chat as well about the issue of police officers dealing with mental health issues in the community, this is something we wanted to discuss, can I get you to do that, please?

AVD

This is a bit related to what we're talking about just now, that the whole idea is that policing is actually there in society and make sure it is connected to local communities and is connected to the living space of citizens. It's sort of the old model of ‘policing by consent’, then you got to be there. And one of the things now that has been happening in the Netherlands and that has been happening now for 10, 15 years, is a steady increase in incidents, emotionally disturbed people who might or might not have a mental health issue. And that has grown enormously, so last year, we've got more than 150,000 incidents around mental health crisis situations. So, something is going wrong there and we've had lots of committees, especially when there was some sort of a horrific incident where people with mental health issues would become involved in serious crime, this was 10 years or so ago, we even had someone with mental health issues killing a minister in the Netherlands, so obviously, that leads to lots of public turmoil and you got these incidents time and time again and that always leads to committees and then people always say ‘Ah, organisations should work better together’, and but it never happens, it never works. So the problem is still there and what I'm trying to do and what I'm trying to advocate is - we shouldn't look at this issue from the perspective of different organisations, because that is basically the essence of the problem, that all organisations involved look at that and try to say ‘This is our task, and this is your task’ and that always leads to in the end people not getting the help they needed, getting into a crisis situation, and the police has to act on that. And you don't want that, you don't want the police to deal time and time again with people who are basically in need of care and of help. So, this is one of the big issues at the moment, and actually I'm pretty proud to say that our recent new, big strategy plan for the Dutch police is saying ‘Well, this is an issue we really want to solve in the next five years’. Which means we got to have a different outlook and really look at it as a whole of government or whole of society approach to make this make this happen, realise that you cannot just look at policing when it comes to mental health, but at a certain stage you got to say ‘What is happening there in a more general sense and how are we going to react to that?’ So, it is one of the important issues in the Netherlands at the moment.

SKN

I'm sure you've dissected the problem with all the committees that you've had because of this - is it The case that mental health incidents have gone up, period, or is it the case that other agencies are maybe less able to cope or are maybe palming things off to the police, and is the increase in mental health issues in line with the increase in population, or is there something else going on that's got nothing to do with expected growth in population?

AVD

I think it's all of those things, so, it's not just population growth but mental health issues within the population are rising as well, and that is a bigger debate that is there in in the Netherlands, also you've got influx of lots of other people within the European Union, so that is another factor. You're totally right that it's also about the health institutions or mental health institutions not being able to cope with the number of incidents. As in many countries, the idea was - don't put people with mental health issues in institutions, but let them be within the neighbourhoods, which is a very, very good idea, but one of the issues is you got to organise then that there is an enough support in the neighbourhoods, and that has been difficult the last 10 years or so. So, what you see is basically every government organisation or public profession is struggling with how to deal with this enormous amount of issues. And obviously, for the police there is the issue that if no-one else does anything, in the end it still ends up with the police, because police is still the only 24/7 organisation that is always there and doesn't charge anything. So, that's one of the issues as well.

We try to solve this by better cooperation between different organisations, but I actually think we've sort of reached the limit of organising cooperation between organisations, because organisations are meant to make transactions cost low within the organisation and then you can work with other organisation, but nowadays, things that are important like the mental health issues are at the border of traditional organisations. So, basically you got to come up with a new plan on how to organise that and that's where I got involved in a movement around what we call law enforcement and public health, and law enforcement basically meaning policing, and where we said you got to have a broader look on what issues we're dealing with, because the most important issue in policing is dealing with daily, are issues that are related or are at the intersection of policing and public health. And mental health is a very important example, but also abuse of drugs, and we've just come out of a pandemic, well that's a very, very clear example. So, we're going to come up with new ideas on how to structure this and I actually believe this should be part of the future of policing now, to restructure this idea here that coming from the modern times, where we said we've got these nice sectors, so we've got law enforcement, we've got health, we've got other government agencies who are doing specific tasks, going to a position where you say no, no, no we've got some societal issues, how to solve this, and let that be the starting point of thinking about how we should organise stuff. And for me, what professionals are doing should be centre stage, because if you look at for example these mental health incidents, at the level of professionals people are dealing with that. So, police is connecting to public health and to all kinds of other institutions that could be important and they're trying to solve problems, at that level professionals are actually working really hard to solve this issue. The problem is, the organisations they are coming from are not yet structured and geared to actually make this happen. So, my plea is: take what is happening at the level of professional and professionals and exactly where they feel like ‘This doesn't feel good at all’, we used to call it professional tummy ache, take that seriously and take that as a starting point of thinking about where your organisation should go, not just police but the other organisations as well.

SKN

Okay, so some kind of shared responsibility, looking at the whole thing as a societal issue rather than: you should be doing this you should be doing that. And I take it you probably don't have the solutions yet but you're working on them, correct?

AVD

Solutions to issues like that are never like ‘Okay I've came up with the idea and it then happens’, right?  Like I said, I'm involved in this movement called Law Enforcement and Public Health and we've got a global association and conferences and we look at lots of cases that show how it could be done. And then obviously you could come up with ideas of what it should look like So, that's one of the things I did for example in a book on changing policing for communities. But the next question is obviously, how to get there, how to make this gradually go into the right direction. I don't think we have the solution, but for example now within Dutch police, we explicitly say with issues like this that we're not going to look at this from a narrow police perspective. We're just not going to do that, we're going to involve the authorities and the other organisations to look how we are going to deal with this and what this asked from our organisation So, the whole idea of a police service saying well here's an issue we're not looking at from a sole policing perspective is very important - we also for example, when we got a new cabinet and then you've got elections and every organisation is saying we need resources for this, this and this, we call this a position paper, and in our position paper as the Dutch police on this issue, we actually asked for extra resources not for policing, but for public health and for mental health. Now, I think that is an important move and and and if we're going into that reaction direction I really believe that is in the end restructuring policing, but not just policing, also maybe other actors in the front line and basically even restructuring the way we think about government services. So, I think we don't have a definitive solution but I think we're actually with this line of working, we're going in the right direction.

SKN

That's good to hear. As my last question to you today Dr van Dijk, if you had a magic wand and you can wave it to make one change in policing, what would that one change be?

AVD

I wasn't prepared for that question, it's a good one - I never think about magic wands, but if I think about that, it's probably what goes back to the old idea which was also mentioned by classic sociologists like Egon BittnerEgan Bitner, saying that policing is basically not about catching criminals, it's actually about taking care and protecting the vulnerable. And that involves catching criminals as well, but that's not the basis. I once gave a course onf this to police officers all over Europe and I said ‘If I wake you up, what is policing about? And I wake you up and you said "Well we got to fight crime." But if I would wake you up and you would say "We got to protect the vulnerable." You actually see that your work is a lot like it is now, but it's got a very different perspective to it and it makes you think differently about why you are with the police. So, if my magic wand works, I would say for every police officer if I wake them up and say what is policing about saying ‘To protect the vulnerable’.

SKN

Thank you very much for that, Dr van Dijk, thank you very much for your time today and I'll see you again