Amsterdam is launching a “one stop” crisis line so that worried residents can report individuals showing confused or irrational behaviour.

The telephone line – 020 552 5000 – has been set up after an analysis of the events that led to a deadly stabbing on the Robert Scottstraat in 2023, when a mentally-ill man murdered his downstairs neighbour and seriously injured his housemate.

“We have had a number of appalling stabbing incidents and … [after] the Robert Scottstraat we did an extensive investigation,” said Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema at a press conference. “I have spoken to many people affected in the past year, parents, victims, neighbours, and the impact on their lives was gigantic…as well as for the family of the perpetrator who fell between the cracks of the care system.”

At an annual presentation of crime figures, she said that although there were plenty of systems to report confused or irrational behaviour, they did not work properly together and so mentally-ill people could sometimes evade help or fail to find it – with “heart-wrenching” consequences.

“In the new reporting point, there will be professionals from all areas of the city, the public health institute, police, Actiecentrum Veiligheid en Zorg rehabilitation institute, mental health services and the housing corporations,” she said. “People can make a report and experts will be present to make sure that never again will they be sent from pillar to post without a proper follow-up.”

Demonstrations

Presenting the crime figures for 2024 with head of the public prosecution René de Beukelaer and chief of police Peter Holla, the mayor said 2024 had been an “extraordinarily intensive” year. There was a dramatic increase in the number of demonstrations, from around 1,000 in 2028 to around 3,000 last year and public disorder around student protests in May and the Ajax-Tel Aviv Maccabi football match in November.

This came at a cost to community policing and solving other cases, they said. “It all comes at the cost of the presence of neighbourhood police,” said Halsema. “The [national political] discussion about demonstration rights doesn’t help us. More rules, more restrictions mean more enforcement, more confrontations, more police involvement.”

Holla added that a ban on consumer fireworks, supported by many municipalities and police forces, would have a huge impact on making policing more effective. “It is hugely important that we have police visible on the street and in the neighbourhoods because that’s the place where we stand alongside the people…where we work on winning trust,” he added. “The local bobby, the youth worker, the network police officer…go into schools, they know which families need extra attention, and pulling them out of neighbourhoods is the beginning of the end.”

Explosions

Crime levels remained relatively stable last year, he said – although there was a 16% increase in car thefts to 1,181 incidents. A total of 20 people were murdered, 14 of them as a result of knifing: in half of these cases, the suspect had psychiatric problems. There was also a rise in traffic deaths, from 16 in 2023 to 25 last year – most of them cyclists and pedestrians – and police warned about a rise in “fake police officers” involved in crime.

De Beukelaer said that the public prosecution is concerned about the number of children and teenagers who are misled, bullied or attracted into crime, especially in setting off explosions. There were 251 explosions in Amsterdam in 2024, some of which involved children as young as 14 and 12. “This is hugely worrying,” he said.

“One 23 year old man used very young boys of 12 and 14  in a shocking way in crime, recruiting them to commit attacks in the centre of the city. Young people are easily recruited via platforms like Telegraph and Snapchat, and don’t think of the consequences for others or for themselves…There needs to be more action to stop young people on this destructive path.”

Amsterdam’s pilot crisis line to report threatening confused or irrational behaviour is on 020 552 5000