More Dutch People Report Crime in Their Area Than Bulgarians Do

What people say about where they live

Households are asked whether they experience crime, violence or vandalism in their local area. The answer is a perception of the immediate environment, not a report of having been a victim and not a count of offences recorded by police.

Across the EU in 2023, 10.0% said yes.

The Netherlands

The Netherlands records 16.7%, second in the Union. That is the result that makes this indicator interesting rather than confirmatory.

It is one of the wealthiest Member States, records among the highest life satisfaction, the lowest NEET rate in the Union and near-universal digital and material provision. On this measure it sits above Bulgaria, Romania and Italy.

Several things plausibly contribute and none is established here. The Netherlands is densely populated — Dutch regions are among the most crowded in the Union outside city-states — and urban density raises the visibility of vandalism and public disorder regardless of its level. Reporting norms may also differ: a population that expects a well-maintained public environment may register deterioration a population with lower expectations would not.

The important point is narrower than any of those explanations. A perception question does not measure the same thing as a crime statistic, and the Dutch position demonstrates it clearly enough that no further argument is needed.

Greece and Bulgaria

Greece records 20.9%, the highest in the Union, and Bulgaria 15.6%.

Both are Member States where this site records poor outcomes across a range of indicators: Greece has the highest unmet medical need, the highest housing cost overburden and the lowest life satisfaction after Bulgaria, which records the lowest of all.

Where perceived neighbourhood problems coincide with poor material conditions, the perception is more likely to be tracking something real about the local environment. That is a reasonable reading for Greece and Bulgaria and a poor one for the Netherlands, and the indicator does not tell you which case you are looking at.

The low end

Croatia records 1.4%, Lithuania 2.7%, Poland 2.8% and Slovenia.

A figure of 1.4% means roughly one household in seventy reports any crime, violence or vandalism in its area. Whether Croatian neighbourhoods are genuinely twelve times more orderly than Dutch ones, or Croatians report differently, cannot be settled from this data.

Why it is published at all

Despite everything above, the indicator has a purpose. Perceived safety affects whether people walk, use public space, let children out and remain in a neighbourhood — behaviour that recorded crime statistics do not capture and that matters for how a place functions.

It should be read as a measure of how a population experiences its environment, which is what it is, and never as a measure of crime, which it is not.