After the defeatist comments of the Amsterdam police chief about crime, we now get a report from the Scientific Council for Government Policy on crime. Their shocking advice: serious crimes should always be prosecuted. Only if it is in the public interest not to prosecute, should prosecution be foregone. Of course, this means that right now, not all serious crime is prosecuted as a matter of course. The Council says that especially in serious violent crimes prosecution should always take place. Makes you wonder what the policy is right now.

The Council furthermore points out that the Dutch police is ineffective compared to the German police. No further Europe-wide comparison were given in the newspaper article, and the report itself is not online (yet?) at the Council's site. Other salient points: in the Netherlands, there is no reaction from the justice system to even serious crimes. "That raises questions about the internal efficacy of the police." The Council recommends hiring more judges and prosecutors.

But the Council shows the same defeatism as the Amsterdam police chief. Crime is "policy-resistant, the goal of stopping or reducing crime appears to be too ambitious." That's why the Council opposes tougher sentences. Holy legal mazes! Do you really have to be a social scientist to think that locking up people for long periods of time is not going to reduce crime? While they're in prison repeat offenders are not very likely to be committing crimes on the street, are they? Three strikes and you're out sounds like a good policy to me. But getting there is going to be hard; this is the country where a "life" sentence means you're out in 18 years (if not sooner; I'm trying to find hard data on that). Life sentences are rare though. Often murderers get "long" sentences of 10-15 years, which gets them out in 2/3rds of the time.

What would have happened to New York City if Rudy Giuliani had had the same mindset? Both the police and the policy makers have capitulated to crime. By shrugging their shoulders and saying it can't be affected by policy anyway, they shirk their responsibility and condemn the citizens to more crime.