16 ms·

Is the Netherlands becoming a narco-state?

34 points by cmsefton 7y ago

corporate_shi11 7y ago
Huh, maybe mass immigration of culturally distinct impoverished and unskilled young men isn't a good policy after all...
- topmonk 7y ago
  If the unskilled young men were left in their home country, they would still be unskilled for the rest of their lives. But, by bringing them in we are not only teaching them how to be more skilled, but also teaching our society how to more efficiently take unskilled workers and bring them up to a highly skilled workers who can live a middle class life style like you or me. This is because the more you focus on something the better you are at it, even at a societal level. For example, a town living outside a desert is much more effective at preserving rainwater than one besides a jungle. So, after western society has learned how to take care of immigrants better, not only is it helping them, but helping itself as well.
  - yeheh2ue 7y ago
    Your logic is idiotic.
  - golergka 7y ago
    It is helping itself with a problem it created in the first place.
    - topmonk 7y ago
      A man who lifts weights to build muscle doesn't consider the weights problems
  - Udik 7y ago
    One could also say that having an abundance of a cheap, low quality resource, steers the economy into exploiting it instead of learning to use better alternatives. In the case of low-skilled immigrant workers, this means not being forced to improve processes and technologies, because you can rely on a lot of cheap, unskilled manual labour. Same logic, and I think a little bit less far-fetched than yours.
    - topmonk 7y ago
      I didn't say economy, I said society. Society has a responsibility to take care of the people who live there. The capitalist economy would as soon leave them to rot, as take care of them.
  - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
    In theory yes, but not in Amsterdam and the Randstad where there's too many people and too few schools. Not much chance of a middle class lifestyle there either, not with housing prices being what they are. It's a poverty lifestyle even if you manage to get a decent house; no wonder people are looking for fast, big money. Especially if they have family connections and can get away with it easily.
    - topmonk 7y ago
      Can't that “not enough schools” change though?
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    The best way to help Africans is for Africans to help themselves in Africa first, then we can see how to help through investments in Africa. All the "let's welcome immigrants" discourse might give warm feelings to some but it does not help solving the issues in the countries of origin, and it also creates social issues in the countries of destination. I think it would be much more helpful to e.g. have more students programs whereby bright young people from these countries can get visas and scholarships to study and get a professional experience in Europe with the hard requirement that they must then return to their home countries afterwards.
    - topmonk 7y ago
      > The best way to help Africans is for Africans to help themselves in Africa first That's akin to telling a homeless person, “Get a job!” > ... creates social issues in the countries of destination. Social pressures, which may lead to solutions. > ...get a professional experience in Europe with the hard requirement that they must then return to their home countries afterwards. What's to prevent these bright young professionals as soon as they are flown back to their country from just getting sponsored by a company in another foreign country and then hopping on a plane again? What you're advocating for is a very weak attempt at finding a solution by doing much of the same. Unless society is pushed, it will never change. Immigration provides pressure for society to learn how to integrate poorer people, whether homegrown or foreign, helping everybody.
      - corporate_shi11 7y ago
        That's an incredibly naive and irresponsible approach to building a society. You're basically inviting a huge social challenge and stressor into otherwise perfectly functional and harmonious societies just to possibly further your own political and social agenda. You're like an engineer who throws a few bugs into a functioning system because "it will force the system to improve". The prosperous parts of the world are prosperous because the people living there made them prosperous. Unprosperous parts of the world could do the same if they followed the well worn path of development (law, order, stability, individuals working hard to learn and build business and enterprise, etc.) that all developed nations have followed.
  - consp 7y ago
    > If the unskilled young men were left in their home country, they would still be unskilled for the rest of their lives. Most people involved in these groups are either second or third generation children of immigrants who specifically came for work which was available in the late 50's, 60's and early 70's which were specifically targeted since there was a major lack of available manpower due to fast economic growth and reduced workforce (since there was a small war a decade or so ago). Unskilled maybe but they definitely had work.
    - topmonk 7y ago
      They had miserable work and miserable lives. Your point being?
- skrebbel 7y ago
  The vast majority of narco crime in NL is done by ethnic Dutch people. Sure, there's other ethnicities too. Like most crime, generally it's a pretty representative mix of the poorer classes. Immigration causes all kinds of things, good and bad, but increased drug crime isn't really on the list so far. Source: I live in the south of NL (narco hotspot) and I read the local newspaper. Majority of drug criminals caught have Dutch names. I'm sure there's better stats somewhere but can't be arsed.
  - iguy 7y ago
    To be fair, TFA's take stresses these connections: "Young Moroccans call each other 'Mocro'...", and "... West Africa. The drugs then went north over old smuggling lines from Morocco, and young Moroccans whose parents had moved to the Netherlands still had family connections and migration routes to tap into."
    - consp 7y ago
      Only one part of it. Most synthetic drugs are made on site or smuggled in though different routes not involving the parties described. It's a wide mix but due to some "grouping" of certain ethnicity in groups they easily get called out the same while there is a wide variety of people involved. Most is coming in via the Rotterdam harbor (and possibly Vlissingen, IJmuiden and others). And as far as I can read up on it, every ethnic group available is somehow involved in some part of it.
      - iguy 7y ago
        To be clear I don't have a position on this, I don't know enough about NL. The now-invisible top-level comment was being taken to task for stressing the Moroccans' involvement, which the BBC also focused on. I'm sure there are other aspects to the drug business.
  - hos234 7y ago
    Well I have heard narratives about white kids in poorer neighborhoods not applying for that gas station/fast food job because they see it as something that the immigrants do. And then getting stuck in a poverty trap leading to crime. The solutions to that from conservatives is obviously reduce immigration. Progressives need to think about how these kind of dynamics can be changed.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  The Dutch have been manufacturing and trafficking drugs for decades, MDMA, LSD, 2CB, speed, cocaine. A lot of the stuff you see online in Dark Net markets comes from Holland.
himlion 7y ago
I hope XTC gets legalized in the Netherlands as soon as possible. One of the ruling parties (D66) is currently investigating a proposal to do so. We are a very large producer (the largest?) and the stuff is not harmful enough to warrant the prohibition and all of the crime it entails.
- rbinv 7y ago
  MDMA can be incredibly harmful, especially when used frequently.
  - voldacar 7y ago
    source please sir
    - YawningAngel 7y ago
      https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-004-1791-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-004-1791-0
      - MrAlex94 7y ago
        https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/482306 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/... “Our findings suggest that even a first low cumulative dose of Ecstasy is associated with decline in verbal memory. Although the performance of the group of incident Ecstasy users is still within the normal range and the immediate clinical relevance of the observed deficits is limited, long-term negative consequences cannot be excluded.“ I’m curious to see if there are, or have been any studies in the long term effects?
  - qtplatypus 7y ago
    So can alcohol and smoking.
    - drcross 7y ago
TeeWEE 7y ago
What also doesnt help is that drugs is kind-a accepted in the party scene. XTC, Cocaine, in certain circles its quite normal that its used. And buying it is very easy. Also the police doesn't prioritize handling this. I heard that accross one police station taxis would stop, get somebody in the cart, drive 100m, and then the person gets out. The police knew that drugs was being dealed here, but they didnt prioritize dealing with that. I don;t know exactly why. Also: In the evening/night, in Amsterdam city centry, you can see certain guys wandering around: They are drugs dealers, everybody who know how to recognize them will see them popup everywhere. Including the police. But as long as the police doesn't SEE them dealing the drugs, they cant do anything. That including tall the XTC producing labs in the south of holland, and the perfect infrastructure, big harbours make the Netherlands an ideal breeding ground for big drugs networks. To be honest, i think we should legalize more, and accept that there is a market for it. Yes i'm dutch too :-)
- sandoooo 7y ago
  >everybody who know how to recognize them will see them popup everywhere. Just out of curiosity, what are the tells for a drug dealer in Amsterdam? Asking for a friend.
  - mrsuprawsm 7y ago
    I would not buy drugs on the street in Amsterdam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Amsterdam_drug_deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Amsterdam_drug_deaths
  - batuhanicoz 7y ago
    One time I was in Amsterdam, a guy approached us and pretty bluntly asked if we need any cocaine. That was pretty telling.
    - onorton 7y ago
      Has happened to me in London a few times as well.
  - 7y ago
theqult 7y ago
Prohibitionist bullshits
kabes 7y ago
Answer: no. Not by any real definition of a narco-state[1]. There is a lot of drug trafficking/production, but there is no meaningful infiltration into the official institutions/government. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-state
- seqizz 7y ago
  Ah, of course, "Betteridge's law of headlines" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    This could be the theme of HN. "Is React going to upend the programming world forever?!" "AMD Soars, is Intel's time over?" etc. etc.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  The reason for people being upset is not the drug usage, which is actually not much of an issue (arguably less so than in other countries). The local drug policies actually work in preventing that from becoming an epidemic issue like elsewhere. The real reason is the high profile violent murders of witnesses, lawyers, etc. associated with trials of high profile criminals with Moroccan roots. This particular minority has been the focus of populist politicians for decades because of the much higher crime rates in that community (compared to other minorities). Murders and assassinations are of course not specific to that minority. Recently, re-convicted Willem Holleder (famous for his part in kidnapping Freddie Heineken in the eighties) is basically in jail for ordering the liquidation of several of his criminal partners. Unlike his Moroccon colleagues he's somewhat of a celebrity and has been for decades. In any case drug production and export is of course illegal but not considered much of a problem as long as people don't go about machine gunning each other down. I'm not a user of any of this stuff but if other people want to take some pills, smoke some weed, or snort some cocaine that's fine with me. I doubt it's very good for you but most people doing this seem to not end up being homeless drug addicts. The ones that do tend to have psychological issues. Decriminalizing them seems like a humane thing to do. In any case, legalizing this stuff so people don't have to engage with and enrich hardcore criminals would probably be a good thing. Like it or not, this is a multi billion dollar business and it's not going away.
paganel 7y ago
> They are aspirational, they are looking for a career in the underworld. I bet they would have been really happy to become corporate lawyers, highly paid computer programmers or big-4 accountants, but I have a slight feeling those career opportunities were never quite open for them (except for a very lucky few). In other words, if you only provide a "life of crime" as a way of getting out of poverty you can be sure that there be will lots and lots of people choosing that. And who can blame them?
- mg794613 7y ago
  The thing is, they have so many opportunities in the Netherlands. The true problem is the culture, and I'm not talking about maroccan culture, but "mocro". This is a culture that developed over 3/4 generations where the criminal path is the "cool" option. The right basically imported them to do jobs the dutch felt too good for. Then they were told by the left not to hit their kids, but weren't told how to raise them instead. All respect for the father (important in that culture) got lost and the kids ended on the streets, giving each other a feed back loop to "screw those stupid dutchies". The dutch also failed in regards of spreading them, which allowed for this culture to develop.
  - mg794613 7y ago
    For example, white or black schools were unthinkable about 20 years ago. It simply didn't exist because everything was mixed. Nowadays this is a real thing.
wreet 7y ago
I like how the conservative BBC, writing from a country whose murder rate is double that of the Netherlands, is trying to hype up violence Amsterdam because they don't like drugs. What a bunch of shit.
- bnastic 7y ago
  Calling BBC "conservative" is quite a stretch
- brnt 7y ago
  Even so, liquidations are on the up in the Netherlands, and they are almost always drug-mob related. There's not enough money to patrol the south-Dutch countryside for illegal production and disposal, which is turning into the number one environmental issue the country has (apart from climate-related problems). The Police of Amsterdam had to shutter their major crimes unit for lack of funding, Dutch Police has some of the worst solving rates in Europe anyway, liquidations are predominantly in this city and are spilling over into non-criminal life, lawyers are being killed in the streets, are recusing themselves every day. Thing may not be as violent as in Britain, but the country is on course for it, mainly due to drug related criminal activity. Some newspapers, even the justice minister recently, theorize that the lack of experience of Police in dealing with major crime is just not well developed in general, which together with a generally relaxed attitude and a central and well connected location in Europe (port of Rotterdam, airport of Amsterdam) make the country an ideal place to conduct such drug-business in relative quiet.
  - rocgf 7y ago
    > lawyers are being killed in the streets I mean... that happened once.
    - brnt 7y ago
      Derk Wiersum, Philippe Schol recently. I lost track of the number of recusations. The professional club has openend a hotline for judges and laywers in case of threats (which largely go unreported in the media for obvious reasons) [1]. This all is unprecedented. [1] https://www.advocatenorde.nl/nieuws/contactpunt-beroepsgroepen-ingesteld-voor-advocaten-en-rechters https://www.advocatenorde.nl/nieuws/contactpunt-beroepsgroep...
moonbug 7y ago
betteridge
tzs 7y ago
For those like me who never heard the term "supergrass" before, and are even more confused after Googling and finding out the entire first page of results are about an English rock band of that name: > Supergrass is a British slang term for an informant who turns Queen's evidence, often in return for protection and immunity from prosecution. In the British criminal world, police informants have been called "grasses" since the late 1930s, and the "super" prefix was coined by journalists in the early 1970s to describe those who witnessed against fellow criminals in a series of high-profile mass trials at the time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergrass_(informant) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergrass_(informant)

34 points by cmsefton 7y ago

Huh, maybe mass immigration of culturally distinct impoverished and unskilled young men isn't a good policy after all...

topmonk 7y ago
If the unskilled young men were left in their home country, they would still be unskilled for the rest of their lives. But, by bringing them in we are not only teaching them how to be more skilled, but also teaching our society how to more efficiently take unskilled workers and bring them up to a highly skilled workers who can live a middle class life style like you or me. This is because the more you focus on something the better you are at it, even at a societal level. For example, a town living outside a desert is much more effective at preserving rainwater than one besides a jungle. So, after western society has learned how to take care of immigrants better, not only is it helping them, but helping itself as well.
- yeheh2ue 7y ago
  Your logic is idiotic.
- golergka 7y ago
  It is helping itself with a problem it created in the first place.
  - topmonk 7y ago
    A man who lifts weights to build muscle doesn't consider the weights problems
- Udik 7y ago
  One could also say that having an abundance of a cheap, low quality resource, steers the economy into exploiting it instead of learning to use better alternatives. In the case of low-skilled immigrant workers, this means not being forced to improve processes and technologies, because you can rely on a lot of cheap, unskilled manual labour. Same logic, and I think a little bit less far-fetched than yours.
  - topmonk 7y ago
    I didn't say economy, I said society. Society has a responsibility to take care of the people who live there. The capitalist economy would as soon leave them to rot, as take care of them.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  In theory yes, but not in Amsterdam and the Randstad where there's too many people and too few schools. Not much chance of a middle class lifestyle there either, not with housing prices being what they are. It's a poverty lifestyle even if you manage to get a decent house; no wonder people are looking for fast, big money. Especially if they have family connections and can get away with it easily.
  - topmonk 7y ago
    Can't that “not enough schools” change though?
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  The best way to help Africans is for Africans to help themselves in Africa first, then we can see how to help through investments in Africa. All the "let's welcome immigrants" discourse might give warm feelings to some but it does not help solving the issues in the countries of origin, and it also creates social issues in the countries of destination. I think it would be much more helpful to e.g. have more students programs whereby bright young people from these countries can get visas and scholarships to study and get a professional experience in Europe with the hard requirement that they must then return to their home countries afterwards.
  - topmonk 7y ago
    > The best way to help Africans is for Africans to help themselves in Africa first That's akin to telling a homeless person, “Get a job!” > ... creates social issues in the countries of destination. Social pressures, which may lead to solutions. > ...get a professional experience in Europe with the hard requirement that they must then return to their home countries afterwards. What's to prevent these bright young professionals as soon as they are flown back to their country from just getting sponsored by a company in another foreign country and then hopping on a plane again? What you're advocating for is a very weak attempt at finding a solution by doing much of the same. Unless society is pushed, it will never change. Immigration provides pressure for society to learn how to integrate poorer people, whether homegrown or foreign, helping everybody.
    - corporate_shi11 7y ago
      That's an incredibly naive and irresponsible approach to building a society. You're basically inviting a huge social challenge and stressor into otherwise perfectly functional and harmonious societies just to possibly further your own political and social agenda. You're like an engineer who throws a few bugs into a functioning system because "it will force the system to improve". The prosperous parts of the world are prosperous because the people living there made them prosperous. Unprosperous parts of the world could do the same if they followed the well worn path of development (law, order, stability, individuals working hard to learn and build business and enterprise, etc.) that all developed nations have followed.
- consp 7y ago
  > If the unskilled young men were left in their home country, they would still be unskilled for the rest of their lives. Most people involved in these groups are either second or third generation children of immigrants who specifically came for work which was available in the late 50's, 60's and early 70's which were specifically targeted since there was a major lack of available manpower due to fast economic growth and reduced workforce (since there was a small war a decade or so ago). Unskilled maybe but they definitely had work.
  - topmonk 7y ago
    They had miserable work and miserable lives. Your point being?
skrebbel 7y ago
The vast majority of narco crime in NL is done by ethnic Dutch people. Sure, there's other ethnicities too. Like most crime, generally it's a pretty representative mix of the poorer classes. Immigration causes all kinds of things, good and bad, but increased drug crime isn't really on the list so far. Source: I live in the south of NL (narco hotspot) and I read the local newspaper. Majority of drug criminals caught have Dutch names. I'm sure there's better stats somewhere but can't be arsed.
- iguy 7y ago
  To be fair, TFA's take stresses these connections: "Young Moroccans call each other 'Mocro'...", and "... West Africa. The drugs then went north over old smuggling lines from Morocco, and young Moroccans whose parents had moved to the Netherlands still had family connections and migration routes to tap into."
  - consp 7y ago
    Only one part of it. Most synthetic drugs are made on site or smuggled in though different routes not involving the parties described. It's a wide mix but due to some "grouping" of certain ethnicity in groups they easily get called out the same while there is a wide variety of people involved. Most is coming in via the Rotterdam harbor (and possibly Vlissingen, IJmuiden and others). And as far as I can read up on it, every ethnic group available is somehow involved in some part of it.
    - iguy 7y ago
      To be clear I don't have a position on this, I don't know enough about NL. The now-invisible top-level comment was being taken to task for stressing the Moroccans' involvement, which the BBC also focused on. I'm sure there are other aspects to the drug business.
- hos234 7y ago
  Well I have heard narratives about white kids in poorer neighborhoods not applying for that gas station/fast food job because they see it as something that the immigrants do. And then getting stuck in a poverty trap leading to crime. The solutions to that from conservatives is obviously reduce immigration. Progressives need to think about how these kind of dynamics can be changed.
Synaesthesia 7y ago
The Dutch have been manufacturing and trafficking drugs for decades, MDMA, LSD, 2CB, speed, cocaine. A lot of the stuff you see online in Dark Net markets comes from Holland.

himlion 7y ago

I hope XTC gets legalized in the Netherlands as soon as possible. One of the ruling parties (D66) is currently investigating a proposal to do so. We are a very large producer (the largest?) and the stuff is not harmful enough to warrant the prohibition and all of the crime it entails.

rbinv 7y ago
MDMA can be incredibly harmful, especially when used frequently.
- voldacar 7y ago
  source please sir
  - YawningAngel 7y ago
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-004-1791-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-004-1791-0
    - MrAlex94 7y ago
      https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/482306 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/... “Our findings suggest that even a first low cumulative dose of Ecstasy is associated with decline in verbal memory. Although the performance of the group of incident Ecstasy users is still within the normal range and the immediate clinical relevance of the observed deficits is limited, long-term negative consequences cannot be excluded.“ I’m curious to see if there are, or have been any studies in the long term effects?
- qtplatypus 7y ago
  So can alcohol and smoking.
  - drcross 7y ago

TeeWEE 7y ago

What also doesnt help is that drugs is kind-a accepted in the party scene. XTC, Cocaine, in certain circles its quite normal that its used. And buying it is very easy. Also the police doesn't prioritize handling this. I heard that accross one police station taxis would stop, get somebody in the cart, drive 100m, and then the person gets out. The police knew that drugs was being dealed here, but they didnt prioritize dealing with that. I don;t know exactly why. Also: In the evening/night, in Amsterdam city centry, you can see certain guys wandering around: They are drugs dealers, everybody who know how to recognize them will see them popup everywhere. Including the police. But as long as the police doesn't SEE them dealing the drugs, they cant do anything. That including tall the XTC producing labs in the south of holland, and the perfect infrastructure, big harbours make the Netherlands an ideal breeding ground for big drugs networks. To be honest, i think we should legalize more, and accept that there is a market for it. Yes i'm dutch too :-)

sandoooo 7y ago
>everybody who know how to recognize them will see them popup everywhere. Just out of curiosity, what are the tells for a drug dealer in Amsterdam? Asking for a friend.
- mrsuprawsm 7y ago
  I would not buy drugs on the street in Amsterdam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Amsterdam_drug_deaths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Amsterdam_drug_deaths
- batuhanicoz 7y ago
  One time I was in Amsterdam, a guy approached us and pretty bluntly asked if we need any cocaine. That was pretty telling.
  - onorton 7y ago
    Has happened to me in London a few times as well.
- 7y ago

theqult 7y ago

Prohibitionist bullshits

kabes 7y ago

Answer: no. Not by any real definition of a narco-state[1]. There is a lot of drug trafficking/production, but there is no meaningful infiltration into the official institutions/government. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-state

seqizz 7y ago
Ah, of course, "Betteridge's law of headlines" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  This could be the theme of HN. "Is React going to upend the programming world forever?!" "AMD Soars, is Intel's time over?" etc. etc.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
The reason for people being upset is not the drug usage, which is actually not much of an issue (arguably less so than in other countries). The local drug policies actually work in preventing that from becoming an epidemic issue like elsewhere. The real reason is the high profile violent murders of witnesses, lawyers, etc. associated with trials of high profile criminals with Moroccan roots. This particular minority has been the focus of populist politicians for decades because of the much higher crime rates in that community (compared to other minorities). Murders and assassinations are of course not specific to that minority. Recently, re-convicted Willem Holleder (famous for his part in kidnapping Freddie Heineken in the eighties) is basically in jail for ordering the liquidation of several of his criminal partners. Unlike his Moroccon colleagues he's somewhat of a celebrity and has been for decades. In any case drug production and export is of course illegal but not considered much of a problem as long as people don't go about machine gunning each other down. I'm not a user of any of this stuff but if other people want to take some pills, smoke some weed, or snort some cocaine that's fine with me. I doubt it's very good for you but most people doing this seem to not end up being homeless drug addicts. The ones that do tend to have psychological issues. Decriminalizing them seems like a humane thing to do. In any case, legalizing this stuff so people don't have to engage with and enrich hardcore criminals would probably be a good thing. Like it or not, this is a multi billion dollar business and it's not going away.

paganel 7y ago

> They are aspirational, they are looking for a career in the underworld. I bet they would have been really happy to become corporate lawyers, highly paid computer programmers or big-4 accountants, but I have a slight feeling those career opportunities were never quite open for them (except for a very lucky few). In other words, if you only provide a "life of crime" as a way of getting out of poverty you can be sure that there be will lots and lots of people choosing that. And who can blame them?

mg794613 7y ago
The thing is, they have so many opportunities in the Netherlands. The true problem is the culture, and I'm not talking about maroccan culture, but "mocro". This is a culture that developed over 3/4 generations where the criminal path is the "cool" option. The right basically imported them to do jobs the dutch felt too good for. Then they were told by the left not to hit their kids, but weren't told how to raise them instead. All respect for the father (important in that culture) got lost and the kids ended on the streets, giving each other a feed back loop to "screw those stupid dutchies". The dutch also failed in regards of spreading them, which allowed for this culture to develop.
- mg794613 7y ago
  For example, white or black schools were unthinkable about 20 years ago. It simply didn't exist because everything was mixed. Nowadays this is a real thing.

wreet 7y ago

I like how the conservative BBC, writing from a country whose murder rate is double that of the Netherlands, is trying to hype up violence Amsterdam because they don't like drugs. What a bunch of shit.

bnastic 7y ago
Calling BBC "conservative" is quite a stretch
brnt 7y ago
Even so, liquidations are on the up in the Netherlands, and they are almost always drug-mob related. There's not enough money to patrol the south-Dutch countryside for illegal production and disposal, which is turning into the number one environmental issue the country has (apart from climate-related problems). The Police of Amsterdam had to shutter their major crimes unit for lack of funding, Dutch Police has some of the worst solving rates in Europe anyway, liquidations are predominantly in this city and are spilling over into non-criminal life, lawyers are being killed in the streets, are recusing themselves every day. Thing may not be as violent as in Britain, but the country is on course for it, mainly due to drug related criminal activity. Some newspapers, even the justice minister recently, theorize that the lack of experience of Police in dealing with major crime is just not well developed in general, which together with a generally relaxed attitude and a central and well connected location in Europe (port of Rotterdam, airport of Amsterdam) make the country an ideal place to conduct such drug-business in relative quiet.
- rocgf 7y ago
  > lawyers are being killed in the streets I mean... that happened once.
  - brnt 7y ago
    Derk Wiersum, Philippe Schol recently. I lost track of the number of recusations. The professional club has openend a hotline for judges and laywers in case of threats (which largely go unreported in the media for obvious reasons) [1]. This all is unprecedented. [1] https://www.advocatenorde.nl/nieuws/contactpunt-beroepsgroepen-ingesteld-voor-advocaten-en-rechters https://www.advocatenorde.nl/nieuws/contactpunt-beroepsgroep...

moonbug 7y ago

betteridge

tzs 7y ago

For those like me who never heard the term "supergrass" before, and are even more confused after Googling and finding out the entire first page of results are about an English rock band of that name: > Supergrass is a British slang term for an informant who turns Queen's evidence, often in return for protection and immunity from prosecution. In the British criminal world, police informants have been called "grasses" since the late 1930s, and the "super" prefix was coined by journalists in the early 1970s to describe those who witnessed against fellow criminals in a series of high-profile mass trials at the time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergrass_(informant) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergrass_(informant)