Trends in juvenile crime in the Netherlands and what are effective responses?

Police-registered juvenile crime has more than halved in the Netherlands since the early 2000s. However, this average trend is unequally distributed across crime types, over time, and geographically. Violent juvenile crime has increased slightly since 2018. Registered juvenile crime is concentrated in specific neighborhoods. Literature and empirical data from the Youth Crime Monitor show no indications that juvenile crime became more serious between 2000 and 2024. Still politics calls for more repressive sentences. This raises the question of whether interventions at the neighborhood level are available. Based on the Netherlands Institute for Youth database, we investigated effective or promising interventions. Potentially effective responses to recent developments are discussed.