What on earth is going on in Dutch trains?

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Last night, two boys aged 13 and 14 attacked a train guard in Purmerend. He needed medical treatment after that.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2518846-twee-jongens-van-13-en-14-jaar-mishandelen-conducteur-in-purmerend

Just a few weeks ago, another train guard was attacked, and even thrown down a staircase by a bunch of youngsters. That happened between Delft and The Hague. The woman broke her arm.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2516813-conducteur-ns-mishandeld-in-trein-van-trap-gegooid-geschopt-geslagen

I have just spent fifteen years in an English town that has a LOT of violence and intimidation and harassment and I’ve stood up against bullies a few times. Fairly recently, I’ve even stopped two people who were high on meth from pulling a driver out of his car in rush hour, for example, but that is very different.

This violence in Dutch trains is really worrisome and I wouldn’t want to deal with that at all.

What is behind this? Is it still an aftermath effect of the pandemic? I don’t think so.

Particularly the trains between Zwolle and Emmen are seeing a large increase of incidents. What is different about that part of the country?

https://nos.nl/artikel/2518815-grote-stijging-van-het-aantal-incidenten-in-trein-zwolle-emmen

This article mentions that it mostly concerns people without a valid ticket and talks about a large number of refugees who got stuck in that part of the Netherlands because the country where they came from is considered safe enough.

Is that the whole story? It’s very hard to talk about this without risking upsetting anyone if you ask about the backgrounds of the youths in question. But if you want to resolve this, you need the context.

  • One obvious solution appears to be gates at stations, to keep people without ticket from boarding the trains. Then you shift the problem, however. If the violence is mostly associated with people not having tickets, then the real issue is a lack of enough income.
  • So, another solution might be to issue free train passes to for example youths for a while and see how that affects the number of incidents. Free train passes might make a real difference. It might make people feel a lot less defensive. Scared people can easily become aggressive.

Why are so many people needing to travel between Emmen and Zwolle, though?

https://nos.nl/artikel/2496457-nog-altijd-veel-incidenten-in-overlasttrein-zwolle-emmen

The source appears to be Ter Apel, a former military base where my dad had part of his military draft training, which now houses refugees and other asylum seekers.

https://nos.nl/artikel/2481573-politie-mee-op-de-trein-bij-maarheeze-na-overlast-asielzoekers

  • A third solution, then, is to employ some of these asylum seekers on some of these trains, in uniform, but also perhaps in plain clothes. You need to bridge that gap. You need people who understand what is happening.

The presence of police agents in uniform can be provocative and does not necessarily increase the sense of safety among the public. I am in my sixties, and I do not consider the sight of police officers reassuring. To the contrary, I associate police with violence (from whatever source). It depends on the situation, however.

Generally, you can’t fight fire with fire (though it’s basically what I did in the case I mentioned above because I needed to distract them from the driver whose wife and kids were also in the car, by the way).

You have to take away the source of the problem, not fight its results.

That said, not hampered by any actual knowledge, I suspect that Purmerend may have a meth problem. If so, then the incident that occurred here may not be related to the incidents on trains elsewhere in the country. People who are high on meth can burst into unprovoked acts of aggression and I’ve seen headlines that suggest that there are violent incidents in Purmerend that seem to come out of nowhere. A web search, however, turned up several drugs-related items. Purmerend’s local population is only around 80,000.

It’s my experiences and observations in Portsmouth that got me interested in what’s going on in and around Dutch trains. There is a marked contrast. I think that’s because Portsmouth is on Portsea Island. That contains the violence and keeps it out of trains. I don’t know if that is the main difference because I am not aware of comparable train incidents in the rest of England. Is that just me being ill informed? Is that because trains have always been much more expensive in England?

Feel free to share your opinion below, please.

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