Public protection and community safety in the Netherlands

Public protection and community safety tend to be multi-headed beasts. That is as true for the Netherlands as it is elsewhere. Looking at public protection and community safety in the Netherlands a multitude of initiatives can be discerned across many spheres whose similarity can only be properly understood by the application of public protection and community safetyesque concepts. Rather like many other western democracies, much public discourse and policy-making is characterised by a newfound preoccupation with crime prevention, public protection, surveillance and the energetic targeting of public incivilities, prolific offenders and individuals and groups deemed to be risky or dangerous. And as is the case elsewhere, many of these initiatives have a local flavour.