Police union ACP said on Tuesday that some local anti-crime initiatives risk becoming violent vigilante groups.

The right to use violence is restricted to the police but the actions of some citizens’ patrols risks undermining their authority, deputy chairman Erwin Koenen told news agency ANP.

‘There are lots of positive examples of the way citizens’ groups act as extra eyes and ears for the police,’ Koenen said. However, ‘a citizen’s partrol could end up using violence and try to legitimise this by saying that they work with the police, but there is no justification for this,’ he said.

‘A group of people who hunt down suspects and use violence is unacceptable,’ he said.

Helicopters

The Veluwe town of Kootwijkerbroek, for example, has a citizens’ patrol of 50 people who wear uniforms and bullet-proof vests and reportedly have three helicopters at their disposal to hunt down criminals.

The group claims to have apprehended a number of crooks. ‘We overpower them, put them flat on the ground and wait for the police,’ one member told the AD earlier.

There are now some 700 people who carry out voluntary patrols in the Netherlands, particularly in the evening and this is five times the 2012 total, Trouw said last September.

Almost half the country’s local authority areas now have some sort of neighbourhood watch or other scheme, the paper said, quoting research by Erasmus University sociologist Vasco Lub.