Registered crime per 1,000 inhabitants

Known criticisms of this statistic

Every statistic embodies method choices, and the substantive critiques of those choices are part of understanding the number. These are documented positions — each linked to who makes it. Listing a criticism is not endorsing it; we take no side.

• Most crime never reaches this series: in 2021 Dutch adults experienced an estimated 4.9 million traditional offences while police registered about 0.8 million — only about a third of experienced offences were even mentioned to the police, and fewer than three in ten led to a formal complaint.

  — WODC/CBS, Criminaliteit en rechtshandhaving 2022 · WODC Cahier 2023-17

• The line moves with willingness to report, not only with crime: CBS notes the series is largely based on citizen reports, that reporting willingness has been falling, and that registered crime fell faster than the crime citizens report experiencing in surveys.

  — CBS, trend analyses 2022–2025 · CBS: Langdurige daling criminaliteit ten einde?

• Crime that moved online is structurally undercounted: roughly 2 in 10 victims of online crime report it to the police, and about 1% of police registrations concern cybercrime.

  — CBS and WODC · CBS: Online veiligheid en criminaliteit 2022

• Since July 2018 police must register concurrent offences separately instead of only the most serious one in an incident — a registration change that lifted counts in some categories without any change in crime.

  — CBS methodology notes · CBS onderzoeksomschrijving geregistreerde criminaliteit

Source & method

Raw snapshot (JSON) · every observation keeps its retrieval timestamp and revision history in the public database.