“For more than twenty years, government organisations have been presenting crime rates broken down by country of origin, in all kinds of publications. But what is the added value of this? That still remains vague! Government research on crime is about uncovering underlying factors such as economic position, level of education or upbringing. Categorisations by origin are by no means necessary. It is almost impossible that this type of communication has not in some way had adverse effects for Dutch-Antilleans, for example for the position on the labor market. It is therefore time to talk about this in a society that advocates inclusion. Especially in view of equal opportunities for our youth, we believe that people’s country of origin should not be mentioned every time we talk about crime.”
“A few years ago, the terms ‘allochtonous’ and ‘autochtonous’ were banned from government communication, supported by extensive government assessment. One of the arguments then was: negative effects on public perception and prejudices. Without much explanation, suspect figures are still being broken down by country of origin. Why would the government’s considerations look differently for country-of-origin categorisations than for the terms ‘allochtonous’ and ‘autochtonous’? And shouldn't you learn a little more about how these figures are perceived by citizens?\"
“Research into factors that correlate with crime does not have to start with the question why there are differences between different origin groups. If you omit that question, you can still acquire exactly the same knowledge about criminogenic factors. The starting point must be that criminogenic factors are characteristics that occur throughout the world, regardless of the origin group. A clear exception to this is selectivity in police arrests. We therefore welcome it if this type of selectivity deserves more attention in crime analyses and data gathering”.
https://www.soualiganewsday.com/index.php/local/soualiga-news-today/item/24920-organizations-call-for-changes-on-communication-on-crime-and-countries-or-origin.html
