Netherlands

Introduction

Reporting period: 2022

Report author(s): Otto Adang

Summary: Certain features of the Dutch system constitute good practice when looked at internationally, but more needs to be done in relation to data on fatalities, including on data collection and analysis, publication and learning lessons when deaths occur following the use of force.

Abstract

As of July 2020, the way in which officers in the Netherlands need to report on the use of force and the way use of force is reviewed and judged have changed, reflecting a conscious attempt to decouple accountability procedures from learning processes. The Netherlands has a clear procedure for the independent investigation of deaths of individuals who were subjected to use of force by police or who died while under control of the police. However, there is limited public information available about these investigations. Police publish yearly statistics on their use of force. However, information on fatalities is the responsibility of the public prosecutor’s office, which only publishes a yearly list of incidents involving the use of a firearm that have been investigated and the total number of fatalities. In individual cases (especially high-profile cases that received a lot of media attention) the public prosecutor’s office publishes a press release after an investigation has been concluded and a decision regarding prosecution of the officer has been taken, summarising the findings of the investigation and the reasons for the prosecutorial decision. There is no legal requirement to publish this information.

The number of civilians killed by on-duty public security agents in the years 2019–2022 for every 100,000 inhabitants was 0.0, the number of civilians killed by on-duty public security agents for every 1,000 public security agents varied between 0.2 and 0.4. More than 90% of fatalities were male and individuals with a non-western migration background were overrepresented compared to the overall population of the Netherlands. The percentage of homicides due to state intervention was 2.4%. Both the number of law enforcement agents killed on duty by firearm and the number of wounded officers by gunshot was zero in the years 2019–2022. The average of civilians killed by intentional gunshot per incident ranged between 0.07–0.25 in these years (if calculated by dividing the number of civilians killed by intentional gun shot with the total of those killed and injured by gunshot), and between 0.02–0.05 (if calculated by dividing the number of civilians killed by intentional gun shot with the total of aimed intentional gunshots fired (including where no one was hit, but excluding warning shots).

Background

The Netherlands is a geographically small coastal state with a high population density (over seventeen million people live in area of 41,543 km2 for a density of 411.3 people/km). Due to its colonial past and labour migration, it has become an increasingly multicultural society. This has tested the country’s long-established reputation as the epitome of a liberal political and cultural tradition, especially since the murder of the right-wing populist politician, Pim Fortuyn, by an environmental and animal rights activist in 2002 as well as the murder of the film maker Theo van Gogh by an Islamist militant in 2004. Policing in the Netherlands was traditionally based on municipalities but was reformed in the 1990s into twenty-five regional forces, with an additional national force providing services to regional forces and performing such tasks as diplomatic protection. Since 2013, a national police force has been formed. Throughout, a basic dual accountability has been in place: on the one hand, the police are responsible to the mayor of the municipalities in which they operate for public order and providing general assistance, but criminal investigation is the province of the public prosecutor.

Dutch police officers (numbering 51,212 in 2022) routinely carry a Walther P99 firearm1, in addition to a short extendable baton, pepper spray and — since 2020 — a Taser. More important than the firearm is the type of ammunition used, as this determines the seriousness of any injuries caused by projectile impact. Since 2011, the Dutch police use Action NP ammunition (the NP stands for Netherlands Police)2.

The police are not the only organisation fulfilling policing functions that carry firearms, but these much smaller organisations have limited duties and no members of any of them have been involved in any fatalities in the last twenty-plus years.

This report presents data from a four-year period from 2019 to 2022 for the police organisation only.

Global treaties

Adherence to selected global human rights treaties
1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)State party
ICCPR Optional Protocol 1State party
1984 Convention Against Torture (CAT)State party
CAT committee competent to receive individual complaints?Yes
CAT Optional Protocol 1State party

Regional treaties

Adherence to selected regional human rights treaties
1950 European Convention on Human RightsState party

Article 11 of the Constitution (Grondwet), mentions the inviolable rights of physical integrity of the body.

Relevant specific national legislation

The use of the firearm is regulated (as are all police uses of force) by Article 7.1 of the Police Law 2012 (Politiewet 2012). It stipulates that police officers are authorized to use force3, when the intended goal justifies this (paying attention to the dangers inherent in the use of force) and the goal cannot be achieved by other means. If possible, a warning should be given before any use of force. The exercise of authority to use force must be reasonable and measured in relation to the intended goal (principles of subsidiarity and proportionality).

In a recent change of the Dutch Criminal Code (2022) a new offence has been introduced ‘schending van de Ambtsinstructie’ (‘violation of the official instructions on use of force’, only in cases that resulted in death or led to injury). The idea is that with this new offence it is possible to better consider the unique position of police officers (as it is part of their job to use force in specific circumstances). The offence is meant for cases where the officer violated the Ambtsinstructie by acting carelessly or made a wrong assessment of the situation. When there is a deliberate violation of the Ambtsinstructie, e.g., by using excessive force, prosecution for offences already in the law (e.g., assault, manslaughter) would be more appropriate.

Relevant national regulations

The official national instruction on the use of force (Ambtsinstructie 19944) is stipulated by Article 9 of the Police Law.

The Ambtsinstructie 1994 defines a ‘means to use force’ (‘geweldmiddel’) as any officially distributed weapon or piece of equipment that can be used for the purpose of using force. Article 4 stipulates that use of a weapon is allowed only if the officer is in the lawful exercise of his duty, if the weapon is given to the officer for that duty and if the officer is trained in the use of the weapon. Article 5 stipulates that when a commanding officer is present, an officer shall use force only if his commander tells him to do so, unless it is not reasonable to wait for a command. Articles 7–12 deal specifically with the use of firearms. Use of a firearm is allowed only against persons or vehicles in which persons are present:

  • to arrest a person who can reasonably be supposed to be in possession of a firearm that is ready to be used and who intends to use it against persons.
  • to arrest a person who attempts to evade a legitimate arrest and who is at the same time suspected of, or convicted for, a criminal offence that
    1. Has a maximum penalty of 4 years or more and
    2. Is a serious infringement of the physical integrity of an individual and
    3. Is a type of criminal offence that is or can be in its consequences a threat to society.
  • in specific cases of serious civil or military disturbances on specific orders from authorities and under command of a senior officer

The Dutch section of Amnesty International is of the opinion that the criteria and thresholds for the use of force provided in the Ambtsinstructie are not compliant with the international standards of necessity and proportionality and the requirements about when firearms may be used5.

The Ambtsinstructie stipulates that no use shall be made of the firearm when the identity of the individual is known, and it is reasonable to assume that postponement of the arrest does not constitute an unacceptable risk to society.

An officer may only take a firearm out of the holster into his hand in cases where use of the firearm is allowed or, for the protection of himself or others, in cases where it can reasonably be assumed such a situation will arise. Whenever such a situation ceases to exist, the firearm must be put into the holster again.

Prior to any use of the firearm, the officer must give a clear verbal warning or a warning shot, unless circumstances do not allow this. Any warning shots should be fired in such a way that danger to persons or properties is avoided as much as possible.

Article 10 specifies that a firearm can only be drawn in circumstances where use of the firearm is permitted or for the safety of himself or others when it can reasonably be assumed that such a situation will arise. If such a situation no longer exists, the firearm should be put away.

Use of force in self-defence (defined as the necessary defence of one’s own or another person’s body or property against immediate attack) is explicitly not included in the Ambtsinstructie, based on the reasoning that for police officers, self-defence works the same way as for every other individual and that therefor there is no need for a separate regulation. In this way any case law regarding self-defence applies automatically to police as well. Other legal grounds to exclude culpability for use of force can be legal regulations and (lawful) official orders.

Articles 8 & 9 of the Ambtsinstructie provide specific regulations for the use of automatic or sharpshooter rifles by special units. In 1989, one death occurred because of the use of such a weapon, but no other instances have occurred since then6. In a specific regulation (RTGP), training requirements for all police officers are set out. In this national regulation it is stipulated that officers should be trained for a minimum of 32 hours a year and that they should qualify regularly (depending on the test, two times per year or once every two years) for three tests: a theoretical test on use of force, a practical test in self-defence and arrest skills and a practical shooting skills test.

The National Regulation on Police Weapons and Equipment (Bewapenings- en uitrustingsregeling 2012)7 stipulates what weapons and equipment may be carried by specific types of officers. Even before there was a national police force, these regulations applied to all police forces and both weapons and equipment were acquired at the national level with the involvement and authorisation of the ministries responsible for police officers (in the past the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice, since 2010 the Ministry of Security & Justice and after a name change in 2017, the Ministry of Justice & Security). No local policies on use of force can be formulated that deviate from national policies.

Part 2: Policies and Procedures

Data collection and publication by official agencies

1. Are the number of deaths following any police use of force
Collected?Partial, Medium
Accessible through existing publicly available information?Partial, Medium
Is this a legal requirement?No Provisions
Can such information be requested from the authorities when not publicly available?Good, Robust
If one can request it, what is the likelihood this information would be released?Good, Robust
Reason(s) why unknown or not applicableAlready in the public domain
2. If published, to what extent can the number of deaths be readily determined from official statistics?Partial, Medium
3. Is it possible to identify specific individuals killed in official records?No Provisions
4. Is demographic and other information for the deceased
Collected?No Provisions
Accessible through existing publicly available information?No Provisions
Is this a legal requirement?No Provisions
Can such information be requested from the authorities when not publicly available?Good, Robust
If one can request it, what is the likelihood this information would be released?Limited, Poor
Reason(s) why unknown or not applicableUnsure; FOI requests may be refused on certain grounds, including confidentiality.
5. Is demographic and other information on officers in use of force incidents
Collected?No Provisions
Accessible through existing publicly available information?No Provisions
Is this a legal requirement?No Provisions
Can such information be requested from the authorities when not publicly available?Good, Robust
If one can request it, what is the likelihood this information would be released?Limited, Poor
Reason(s) why unknown or not applicableUnsure; FOI requests may be refused on certain grounds, including confidentiality.
6. Is information on the circumstances
Collected?Partial, Medium
Publicly available?Limited, Poor
Is this a legal requirement?No Provisions
Can such information be requested from the authorities when not publicly available?Good, Robust
If one can request it, what is the likelihood this information would be released?Partial, Medium
7. Is information about the type(s) of force used
Collected?Good, Robust
Accessible through existing publicly available information?Good, Robust
Is this a legal requirement?Partial, Medium
Can such information be requested from the authorities when not publicly available?Good, Robust
If one can request it, what is the likelihood this information would be released?Good, Robust
Reason(s) why unknown or not applicableAlready in the public domain

Data quality of official sources

8. How reliable are the sources used to produce official statistics about deaths?Good, Robust
9. Are there mechanisms for internal quality assurance / verification conductedGood, Robust
10. Is the methodology for data collection publicised?Good, Robust
11. How reliable are the overall figures produced?Partial, Medium

Data analysis and lessons learnt

12. Do state or police agencies analyse data on the use of lethal force, to prevent future deaths?Partial, Medium
13. Is there evidence that state/ police agencies act on the results of their analysis, including applying lessons learnt?Partial, Medium
14. Are external bodies are able to reuse data for their own analyses?Partial, Medium
15. Do external, non-governmental agencies collect and publish their own statistics on deaths following police use of force?Good, Robust

Investigations by official agencies

16. Is there a legal requirement for deaths to be independently investigated?Good, Robust
17. If so, which organisation(s) conduct these investigations?State Criminal Investigations Department (‘Rijksrecherche’)
18. In the year in question, how many deaths following police use of force have been investigated by the organisation(s) specified in question 17?Respectively 8 (2019), 11 (2020), 11 (2021), 18 (2022), constituting 100% of cases and including custody deaths
19. Are close relatives of the victims involved in the investigations?Limited, Poor
20. Investigation reports into deaths
Are publicly available?No Provisions
Give reasons for the conclusions they have reached?Partial, Medium
Is this a legal requirement?No Provisions
Can such information be requested from the authorities when not publicly available?Good, Robust
If one can request it, what is the likelihood this information would be released?Unknown
21. Is there information available on legal proceedings against agents / officials, pursuant to deaths?Good, Robust
22. Is there information available on legal proceedings against state agencies, pursuant to deaths?Good, Robust
23. Is there information available on disciplinary proceedings against agents/ officials, pursuant to deaths?Partial, Medium
24. Number of prosecutions against agents / officials involved in the last ten years?Data unavailable
25. Number of convictions against agents / officials involved in the last ten years?Data unavailable
26. Number of prosecutions against agencies involved in the last ten years?Data unavailable
27. Number of convictions against agencies involved in the last ten years?Data unavailable
28. Number of cases in which states have been found to have breached human rights law on the use of lethal force?1 ECtHR (2007, Ramsahai v. The Netherlands)

Detailed elaboration

Data collection and publication by official agencies

The number of deaths following police use of force are not recorded. The public prosecutor’s office publishes a yearly list of incidents involving the use of a firearm that have been investigated and how many deaths have resulted following police use of a firearm.

There is no publication of the number of deaths following other types of police use of force (or deaths in police custody, many of which are unrelated to police use of force). As far as is known, these data are not collected. There is no legal requirement to collect or publish these data. Therefore, establishing deaths following other use of force/ in custody deaths requires extensive work encompassing going through press releases or court records. Information on deaths could in principle be requested from authorities via FOI laws, but it is not the case that for each and every case any single authority would be in possession of all relevant data. In individual cases the public prosecutor’s office publishes a press release after an investigation has been concluded and a decision regarding prosecution of the officer has been taken.

Demographic and other information on deceased individuals is not collected or published by the authorities. Due to privacy considerations, it is unlikely that information requests via FOI laws would yield this type of information.

Demographics and other information on police officers are not collected or made available. As their privacy is protected, details about them are not provided in press releases or judicial proceedings. When they testify their anonymity is ensured. Their employee/ labor rights, and the duties of the police organisation as their employer mandate this approach. On some occasions, officers have at some point (after all legal proceedings had ended) spoken out publicly and talked about the enormous impact the incident had had upon themselves, both in their personal lives (Post-traumatic stress syndrome is a known issue among Dutch police officers who fatally shot someone) and career wise (several officers who fatally shot someone subsequently took up another function voluntarily8.

Information on the circumstances in which a death occurs are certainly part of the official investigation. The summary published after the investigation has been concluded contains information about the circumstances, but the amount of detail differs considerably from case to case. There is no legal requirement to publish this information. Only if a case is brought before a judge (a rare occurrence) would more details become publicly available.

Information about the type of force used in general is collected and registered by the police, which is a legal requirement. In principle, the consequences for the citizen are also registered, but this is not always known at the time the registration is made. On a yearly basis, the police publish an overview of the number of incidents police used force and of the types of force being used. This is not a legal requirement and in the past this information was regularly requested by the media using FOI laws.

Data quality of official sources

Data on the number of deaths because of police use of a firearm is 100% reliable. All deaths as a result of police use of force are investigated by the same institution (the State Criminal Investigations Department Rijksrecherche falls under the authority of the public prosecutor’s office) and the number of deaths (including deaths as a result of other uses of force and deaths in custody) rarely if ever rises above 20 per year. The main issue instead pertains to the lack of information available on a case-by-case basis (and the lack of information on the number of deaths linked to weapons other than a firearm).

Data analysis and lessons learned

Over past decades, the Dutch police has commissioned a large number of independent studies into police use of force, including police use of firearms. These studies have been used explicitly to change the Ambtsinstructie, to adjust training in the use of force and to make decisions about the acquisition of new weapons. This does not imply that recommendations from these studies are always acted upon. For these studies, police data and Rijksrecherche data have been made available to researchers9. In recent years, after the formation of a national police force, police also conduct their own (limited) analyses of use of force data10.

Information about the type of force used by police in the Netherlands is collected and registered by the police; it is a legal requirement. Since 2019, the procedure for reporting force was changed in a conscious attempt to decouple accountability procedures from learning processes. According to the new Ambtsinstructie a professional dialogue must be conducted after every use of force. The commanding officer (teamchef) is no longer involved in reviewing and judging the use of force, but is tasked to ensure that, where applicable, lessons are learned, both at an individual and organisational level. In a limited number of cases a more formal procedure is adopted where both a higher-ranking officer and an advisory committee (which includes one civilian) advise the police chief of the regional unit concerned about the professionalism of the use of force. The police chief makes a final decision on the professionalism of the use of force and decides what lessons should be drawn and/or whether disciplinary measures are called for. These changes aim to increase the learning potential of the police organisation, to clarify the position of officers that used force, to treat them in principle as professionals (meaning that only in exceptional cases resulting in death or serious injury will the full spectrum of judicial review take place), to support officers and to be more transparent to the public. An evaluation study of the new procedure welcomed the principled choice to try and separate accountability and learning but concluded that the police organisation must “learn to learn” from use of force11. The changes do not affect the independent way in which incidents that result in fatalities are investigated and dealt with (see below).

In a study on the deaths of 78 people that occurred under the responsibility of the Dutch police in the period 2005–2010, Thoonen et al. (2015) concluded that several factors, such as differences in police and justice systems, the diverging inclusion criteria used in studies on this subject and the fact that the total number of people taken into police custody are often not centrally registered, hampered an (international) comparison of available data and learning lessons12.

Investigations by official agencies

Article 17 of the Ambtsinstructie 1994 stipulates that in specific cases (such as when shots have been fired or someone has died) the chief of police is required to inform the public prosecutor of the use of force. The binding regulation “Procedure after serious incidents involving police use of force” will be followed13. The public prosecutor’s office describes the procedure in these terms as part of a 2011 brochure (published in English):

If civilians are seriously injured or die after a police use of force, the National Police Internal Investigations Department14 (Rijksrecherche) will investigate under the supervision of a public prosecutor. To this purpose, the department has a quick response team to start an investigation whenever such an incident occurs. According to the serious incidents procedure, the police are required to report the incident to the public prosecutor, who will contact the internal investigations department. A coordinator from the internal investigations department will be appointed who will contact the police force involved and explain the internal investigation procedure to the officer involved. In principle, the officer involved should be interviewed within 24 hours. The investigation will be supervised by a public prosecutor, who, for reasons of objectivity, may not be the prosecutor responsible for the area where the incident took place. Members of support services taking part in the investigation (e.g., forensic detectives) may not be connected to those involved in the incident.

All those involved will be interviewed by the internal investigations department. In a meeting with forensic experts and the public prosecutor, a decision is made about which forensic data will and will not be investigated. In case of death, an autopsy is performed on the body of the deceased. In complex cases a video reconstruction is made in the presence of the examining magistrate and lawyers involved. Investigations should be concluded within six weeks but sometimes take longer. Usually, the prosecutor will meet with relatives of the deceased. The department sends its report to the chief public prosecutor who will decide whether the use of force was lawful. The chief public prosecutor will usually ask for and receive non-binding advice from the Advisory Committee on Police Use of Firearms (composed of chief prosecutors, an officer specialised in investigations, the coordinating officer from the internal investigations department and a chief advocate general). According to a binding protocol, police officers will be interviewed in the first instance as witnesses, and not as suspects.

As a result of the investigation, the chief public prosecutor decides whether to prosecute the police officer(s) who used the force that caused the death. When the relatives of the deceased (as directly interested parties) do not agree with this decision, they can petition the Court of Appeals (Gerechtshof) to order the public prosecutor to prosecute the officer(s) involved (Article 12 procedure15). If the court rules favourably on their complaint, a trial will follow. If the court agrees with the prosecutor that a prosecution is not called for, family members may petition the ECHR to take up their case.

As far as transparency is concerned, in most cases, the public prosecutor brings out a press release following his or her decision whether to prosecute the officers involved. The press release usually contains a (very brief) summary of the findings of the internal investigations department16. This means that in cases where there is no prosecution (i.e., in almost all cases) there is little public information about what happened. Relatives may receive (through their lawyers) more extensive results of the investigation, but these are not made public (unless the lawyer decides to go public with part of the findings). If the relatives decide to file a complaint with the Court of Appeals, most of the motivated decisions are published online (at https://rechtspraak.nl). In general, only a selection of court cases is published in this way. In exceptional cases, an independent public investigation (separate from the criminal investigation performed by the internal investigations department) is conducted.

Adang (unpublished) looked at 29 deaths by gunshot that occurred and were investigated in the decade between 2007–2016. Of the 29 deaths, in all but one the prosecutor decided not to prosecute the officer because he considered the use of force to be lawful, in most cases (21 times) because of legitimate self-defence, in two cases according to the rules of the Ambtsinstructie to effect an arrest. In four cases, the reason for non-prosecution remained unclear. In nine cases, relatives of the person killed started an article 12 procedure with the Court of Appeals. In eight of these cases the Court of Appeals agreed with the prosecutor that prosecution was not called for, in one case they ordered prosecution of the officers involved, because it was not evident a court would acquit them. In two cases relatives made an (unsuccessful) appeal to the ECHR.

In the two cases that were prosecuted, the court decided that the officers concerned acted either according to the Ambtsinstructie to affect an arrest or in legitimate self-defence. In two cases relatives started an (unsuccessful) civil case to hold the police organisation and/or individual officers accountable.

Glismeijer (2015) studied the Article 12 complaints procedure with the Court of Appeals, based on 6 complaints filed between 2012 and 2015 with regard to use of a firearm by a police officer (two with a deadly result) and concluded that it is not always clear from the court’s decision (disposition) whether or not the investigation was carried out in an independent, impartial and effective way. This is important because the Article 12 procedure is intended to bolster the confidence of civilians in the judicial process and to prevent arbitrariness in the prosecution policy of the public prosecutor17.

Van der Steeg (2016), a lawyer for police officers, studied twenty-three cases in which police officers who had fired shots (three of which resulted in death) were prosecuted between 2000–2015. The twenty-three officers acted in 21 incidents, nine of them were convicted (mostly for manslaughter18). She notes that in most cases where police officers used their firearm, they were not prosecuted. It is clear according to van der Steeg that judges and prosecutors take the special position of police officers into account regarding their duty to act in specific situations (Garantenstellung) or the proportionality of their actions in a self-defence situation. She notes nevertheless that the number of prosecutions and convictions increased considerably over the last three years of her study (2013–2015)19.

In addition to legal procedures, the National Ombudsman has an independent oversight function. In 2013 the Ombudsman brought out an extensive report on “responsible use of force by police”20. His recommendations contributed to the new (as of July 2020) way in which use of force is reported and reviewed with the aim to increase reflection and learning.

Non-official sources

There is one NGO called ControleAltDelete that consistently draws attention to police use of force and ethnic profiling by police. They compiled a list of individuals that died because of police use of force or in police custody and put them on a website21.

The Dutch section of Amnesty International, on occasion, draws attention to issues with police use of force and ethnic profiling by police in the Netherlands, but they do not compile lists on deaths because of police use of force.

Citizen deaths as result of police use of a firearm are rare enough that they invariably receive media-attention. After a controversial death, media occasionally pay more extensive attention to the topic and then sometimes produce a list of deaths (e.g., examples of alleged “suicide by cop”).

Part 3: Comparative indicators

I-1a. CK: Number of civilians killed by law enforcement agents on duty, by gunshot2
I-1b. CKt: Number of civilians killed by law enforcement agents, regardless of means and whether or not on duty20
I-1c. CW: Number of civilians wounded by law enforcement agents on duty, by gunshot13
I-1d. CWt: Number of civilians wounded by law enforcement agents, whether or not on duty and regardless of meansData unavailable
I-2. CK per 100000 inhabitants0.0
I-3. CK per 1000 law enforcement agents0.4
I-4. CK per 1000 arrests0.0
I-5. CK per 1000 weapons seizedData unavailable
I-6. AK: Number of law enforcement officers unlawfully killed on duty by firearm0
I-6b. AKt: Number of law enforcement officers unlawfully killed, whether or not on duty and regardless of means1
I-7. AK per 1000 agents0
A1. Percentage of homicides due to state intervention1.4
A2. Ratio between CK and AK2/0
A3. Civilian lethality index: Ratio between CK and CW0.15
A4. Lethality ratio: Ratio between Civilian lethality index and law enforcement agents lethality index0.15/0
A5. Average number of civilians killed by intentional gunshot, per incident0.13

Below the data for the comparative indicators are provided for the four years 2019–202222, bearing in mind the following points:

The data deal exclusively with police officers on official duty in the European part of the Netherlands. It did not include accidents or suicides where police officers killed themselves using their service weapon, deaths caused by police not on official duty (there were some instances where officers killed an (ex-) spouse), instances in the Caribbean part of the Netherlands (the Dutch Antilles). There were no instances reported or known where officers used private firearms.

With these particulars in mind, the figures reported in this paper for the Netherlands can confidently be stated to be accurate: On every occasion when a person dies at the hands of police, this is immediately communicated with the public prosecutor’s office.

Comparative indicators 2019 2020 2021 2022
I-1a. Civilians killed (CK) Number of civilians killed by LE agents on duty by gunshot 4 5 2 2
I-1b. Total number of civilians killed by public security agents, regardless of means and whether on or off-duty (CKt) 12 16 13 20
I-1c. (CW) Number of civilians wounded by gunshots by LE agents on duty 12 18 25 13
I-1d. Total number of civilians wounded by public security agents, regardless of means and whether on or off-duty (CWt) Data unavailable Data unavailable Data unavailable Data unavailable
I-2. CK per 100,000 inhab. 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
I-3. CK per 1000 agents 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4
I–4 CK per 1000 arrests 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
I-5 CK per 1000 firearms seized 0.0 Data unavailable Data unavailable Data unavailable
I-6. Number of LE agents killed on duty by firearm (homicides only, excluding suicides and accidents) (AK) 0 0 0 0
I-6b. Total number of LE agents killed, regardless of means and whether on or off-duty Data unavailable 1 3 1
I-7. Number of LE agents killed on duty by firearm (attempted homicides only, excluding suicides and accidents) per 1000 agents (AK per 1000 agents) 0 0 0 0
A-1. % homicides due to state intervention 3.2% 4.1% 1.6% 1.4%
A-2. Ratio between CK and AK 4/0 5/0 2/0 2/0
A-3. Civilian lethality index. Ratio between CK and CW. 0.33 0.28 0.08 0.15
A-4. Lethality ratio. Ratio between Civilian lethality index and LE agents lethality index 0.33/0 0.28/0 0.08/0 0.15/0
A-5a. Average of civilians killed by intentional gunshot per incident (death and injuries by gunshot) 0.25 0.22 0.07 0.13
A-5b. Average of civilians killed by intentional gunshot per incident (death and injuries by directed gunshots fired) 0.03 0.05 0.03 0.02

Data on the number of agents are routinely published by police (and do not include other organisations with policing functions, such as the Royal Dutch Marechaussee KMAR). The number reflects the number of FTE’s (full-time equivalents) of officers carrying weapons.

Data on the number of inhabitants, homicides and arrests are routinely published by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Data on the number of shots fired are published yearly by police.

Data on the number of weapons seized are only available for firearms and are published by police.

The data used do not contain information about either gender or ethnicity of the fatalities. A study of all fatal incidents investigated by the State Criminal Investigations Department between 2016–2022 showed that more than 90% of fatalities were male and that individuals with a non-western migration background were overrepresented compared to the overall population in the Netherlands23.

Number of civilians killed and injured

The data for the number of civilians killed by LE agents on duty by gunshot (CK) are published yearly by the public prosecutor’s office. Over the last 40 years the number ranges between 0–6/year (Adang, unpublished).

The data for the total number of civilians killed by public security agents (CKt) are published yearly by the public prosecutor’s office. Off-duty killings (other than murder-suicide “family drama” domestic violence situations) did not occur. Most of the cases were not “killings” and were not considered homicide, but rather in-custody deaths where no causal relationship with use-of-force was established or suspected.

The data on number of civilians wounded by gunshots by LE agents on duty (CW) are published yearly by the public prosecutor’s office.

Data on the total number of civilians wounded by public security agents, regardless of means and whether on or off-duty (CWt) are unavailable. It is also not clear what the definition of “wounded” is.

Number of law enforcement officers killed and injured

Data on the number of LE agents killed on duty by firearm (homicides only, excluding suicides and accidents) (AK), killed on or off duty regardless of means was based on media reports. Similarly, the number of wounded officers by gunshot are not officially available and these are based on media reports.

Indicators of use and abuse

Abuse indicator 1 (A-1), i.e. the percentage of homicides due to state intervention, has been calculated using the number of civilians killed (CK) by LE agents on duty by gunshot, rather than CKt, because it is unknown how many fatalities were in fact homicides, where a causal relationship with use-of-force was established or suspected.

The abuse indicators A-2 and A-4 could not be calculated because both the number of LE agents killed on duty by firearm and the number of wounded officers by gunshot was 0 in the years 2019–2022.

The final abuse indicator (A-5) is the average of civilians killed by intentional gunshot per incident. This has been calculated in two ways. In A5a, it is calculated by dividing the number of civilians killed by intentional gun shot with the total of those killed and injured by gunshot. In A5b, it is calculated by dividing the number of civilians killed by intentional gun shot with the total of aimed intentional gunshots fired (including where no one was hit but excluding warning shots. These data are provided yearly by police).

Osse & Cano (2017, Figure 1) included another indicator in their comparative analysis: The correlation between homicide rates and police killing rates24. For the 4 years of the data in this report from 2019–2022, the police killing rate (by gunshot) was 2.4% of all homicides, which puts the Netherlands on the lower end of the graph provided by Osse & Cano both for homicide rate and police killing rates (by gunshot), and fits squarely with their observation that “there is a strong correlation between police killing rates and homicide rates, which seems to support the hypothesis that police violence is closely related to prevailing violence in the country”.

Summary and recommendations

This case study has assessed the Netherlands across a range of internationally comparable indicators around police use of lethal force, including: Legal frameworks (including national and international law and regulations); policies and procedures around data collection, publication, analysis, investigations and lessons learnt; and comparative indicators for deaths following police use of force.

The Netherlands has a clear procedure for the independent investigation of deaths of individuals who were subjected to use of force by police or who died while under control of the police. However, there is limited public information available about these investigations.

Police publish yearly statistics on their use of force. It is good to note that, following earlier recommendations, the detail and quality of these data have improved. As of July 2020, the way in which officers in the Netherlands need to report on the use of force and the way use of force is reviewed and judged have changed, a conscious attempt to decouple accountability procedures from learning processes. Independent research concluded that this attempt is an important step to identify and implement lessons learnt but that this is just the beginning of a process to create a learning culture with regard to use of force.

Information on fatalities is the responsibility of the public prosecutor’s office, which only publishes a yearly list of incidents involving the use of a firearm that have been investigated and the total number of fatalities. In individual cases (especially high-profile cases that received a lot of media attention) the public prosecutor’s office publishes a press release after an investigation has been concluded and a decision regarding prosecution of the officer has been taken, summarising the findings of the investigation and the reasons for the prosecutorial decision.

Certain features of the Dutch system constitute good practice when looked at internationally. However, in an area as important as deaths following police use of force, there is no room for complacency. Data collection and analysis with regard to fatalities should be improved and these data should be made public as a matter of course. Having said that, data collection and analysis will not, in themselves, bring about improvements and changes to policies and practices. These can only be achieved by learning the lessons from past experience.

References, data sources and downloads

1 Since 2014, before that they carried a Walther P5

2 http://politieparcours.eu/home/page%204%20politiemunitie.html, http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2009/10/07/the-9x19mm-np-netherlands-police/, and https://www.ruag.com/sites/default/files/media_document/2017-01/9x19_Deformation_Ammunition_en_low.pdf

3 It should be borne in mind that the Dutch word for ‘force’ in the use of force is ‘violence’ (geweld).

4 http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0006589/2017-01-01

5 https://www.amnesty.nl/content/uploads/2020/06/Amnesty-brief_TK-Inbreng-Wetsvoorstel-geweldsaanwending_4-feb-2019.pdf?x18681

6 After the 2001 September 11 attacks in the US, one of the police unions called for an extension of the circumstances in which force could be used to fight terrorism, but this was felt to be unnecessary, as existing regulations were considered to be flexible enough to deal with this. What did occur was a reorganisation of SWAT-teams to be better prepared to deal with terrorism-related incidents. Since 2006 a Special Interventions Unit exists to deal with terrorist incidents.

7 This combined and replaced two previously existing regulations: the Bewapeningsregeling 1994 and the Uitrustingsregeling 2012

8 E.g., S. van Iersel, Spoedassistentie Hoek van Holland: persoonlijke verhalen van agenten uit het korps Rotterdam-Rijnmond over de strandrellen op 22 augustus 2009. Politie Rotterdam Rijnmond, 2010

9 E.g.,

  • O. Adang & J. Timmer, Beheersing van gevaar. Praktijkboek voor de opleiding van vuurwapendragenden en de toetsing van geweldstoepassing. Derde, herziene druk. Den Haag: Elsevier Overheid, 2005.
  • O. Adang, B. Mali & J.S. Timmer, Politiegeweld in zicht: zijn nieuwe geweldsmiddelen nodig? Tijdschrift voor de Politie, 219 (1),2019, 22-26.
  • J. Naeyé, Niet zonder slag of stoot. De geweldsbevoegdheid en doorzettingskracht van de Nederlandse politie. Kerckebosch, Zeist, 2005.
  • J.S. Timmer, J. Naeyé & M. van der Steeg Onder schot: Vuurwapengebruik van de politie in Nederland (1978-1995), Deventer: Gouda Quint, 1996.
  • J.S. Timmer, Politiegeweld: Geweldgebruik van en tegen de politie in Nederland, Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer, 2005.
  • J.S. Timmer & R.S.M. Visser (eds.) Gepast geweld. Geweld van en tegen de politie in 2010. Amsterdam: Centrum voor Politiewetenschappen Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. 2015.

10 See https://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2019/maart/28/00-lichte-daling-in-cijfers-politiegeweld.html for figures on police use of force in 2018. Recently, more detailed data and analyses are published, for 2022 data see https://www.politie.nl/binaries/content/assets/politie/nieuws/2023/mei/20230411-versie-1.0-definitief-rapportage-cijfers-en-duiding-gdpa-2022-finale-versie.pdf

11 O. Adang & B. Mali (eds.), Verantwoorden en leren. Evaluatieonderzoek melden, registreren, beoordelen en leren van geweldsaanwending. Den Haag, Boomcriminologie, 2022

12 E. Thoonen, B. Kubat & W. Duijst, Deaths under the responsibility of the Dutch police: Lessons to be learned. The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, 88, 2015, 123-136. doi:10.1177/0032258X15585248

13 Public prosecution service at a glance, 2011, p 26. The procedure was adopted following a verdict from the ECHR that the procedure followed before was in some respects insufficiently independent and effective and a violation of Article 2, 15 May 2007, Application no. 52391/99, § 321 (Ramsahai v. The Netherlands). https://zembla.bnnvara.nl/data/files/1918355397.pdf

14 Although the term “Rijksrecherche” is translated in this brochure as the Police Internal Investigations Department, it falls in fact under the authority of the public prosecutor’s office and is not part of the police. A better translation would be State Criminal Investigations Department. The ECHR has determined that it is sufficiently independent of the police.

15 Contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure

16 The last few years the published summary has gradually become more extensive but it is still short on details

17 M. Glismeijer, De beklagprocedure van artikel 12 Sv bij het niet vervolgen van politiegeweld door het Openbaar Ministerie. Masterscriptie Strafrecht, Universiteit van Utrecht, 2015

18 In Dutch: doodslag

19 M. van der Steeg, Politieschutter voor de rechter. Tijdschrift Praktijkwijzer Strafrecht. 43, 2016, 1-17

20 Nationale Ombudsman. Verantwoord politiegeweld. Den Haag, de Nationale Ombudsman, 2013

21 https://controlealtdelete.nl/dossier-politiedoden

22 I am grateful to Bas Mali for help in collecting these data

23 H. de Boer et al., Fatale politie-incidenten. Patronen bij fatale incidenten binnen de context van politieoptreden. Arnhem, bureau Beke, 2022

24 A. Osse & I. Cano, Police deadly use of firearms: an international comparison, The International Journal of Human Rights, 21:5, 629-649, 2017. DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2017.1307828