master thesis: j.a. de rooy (2013)

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT AMSTERDAM

The Hague’s troublesome youth groups

Implemented approaches and collaboration between involved stakeholders

Jessica de Rooy

2508601

Culture, Organization & Management

Faculty of Social Sciences

6 October 2013

Thesis supervisor: Dr.ir. K. Boersma

Second reader: Drs. J.J. Wolbers

Internship supervisors: H.L. Duijnhoven & I. Weima

The Hague’s troublesome youth groups. Implemented approaches and collaboration between involved stakeholders.

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“The problem with things like a troublesome youth group and nuisance is, you know, it’s not some sort of

production process, where you put a hundred cookies in a machine and a hundred cookies come out. It’s

always dependent on a thousand and one different things”.

Jeroen


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FOREWORD

Finally, here it is.

After almost 6,5 years of university I have finished my master thesis. From failing my first year of

Criminology, to four years of Sociology which gave me the opportunity to travel to Australia for a

minor, to definitively finishing my years in college with a master’s degree in Culture, Organization

and Management. It has been a long trip, but I’ve enjoyed (almost) every bit of it. This thesis

combines everything I find interesting – it includes bits of criminology, sociology and organizational

anthropology.

The moment I realized it was really time to pick a topic for my master thesis anxiety rushed through

my body. I really had no idea what I wanted to write about. But then a vacancy for an internship with

TNO popped up on Blackboard and I was determined to get the job. Hanneke and Ingrid, my

internship supervisors, gave me the opportunity to do the internship and not a moment have I been

sorry about the decision to write my thesis with TNO. And of course, there have been ups and downs.

I got delayed, partly because not every respondent was too excited about my thesis and partly because

I lost motivation thanks to this year’s wonderful summer. On the other hand, I have met some great

people who were enthusiastic about telling their story and seemed to be happy to be finally heard.

Overall, it has been hard work, but I have experienced my master thesis as a breath of fresh air from

the same old Powerpoint sheets and 500 page-textbooks that are prescribed in every course. I feel I

have really learned a lot during this final period of college. I finally got to see how things work in the

real organizational world instead of reading about it and got to practice my interviewing skills which, I

think, really improved. Hopefully, my graduation will soon result in an exciting job within this field of

study.

I would like to thank everyone that has helped me finish this research. First of all my supervisors:

Kees, Hanneke and Ingrid. Thank you for your ongoing guidance, your interest, your knowledge and

your feedback. Second, I would like to thank my respondents for finding the time to tell me your

detailed stories, without these stories I would be nowhere. Last but not least, I would like to thank

Ciesen for his full support, motivational words and love, and my mom, simply for everything she has

ever done for me.

Enjoy!

Jessica de Rooy

Utrecht, October 2013


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 5

1. Introduction 6

1.1 Introduction to the research topic 6

1.1.1 ‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’ 7

1.1.2 Integrated security plan of The Hague 7

1.2 TNO & BESECURE 8

1.3 Research questions 9

1.3.1 Aim of the research 9

1.3.2 Central research question 9

1.3.3 Sub questions 10

1.4 Delimitation 10

1.5 Scientific relevance 10

1.6 Societal relevance 11

2. Theoretical framework 12

2.1 Troublesome youth groups 12

2.2 Local security networks 13

2.3 Collective sensemaking and framing 16

2.4 Evidence-based policies and evaluation 17

3. Methodology 19

3.1 Getting familiar with the research topic 19

3.2 Methods of data collection 19

3.2.1 Desk research 20

3.2.2 In-depth interviews 20

3.2.3 (Participatory) observations 20

3.3 Access to the field 21

3.4 Sampling 21

3.4.1 Obstacles in sampling 22

3.5 Operationalisation 23

3.5.1 In-depth interviews 23

3.5.2 (Participatory) observations 24

3.6 Analysis 24


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4. Research results 26

4.1 Implemented approaches and involved stakeholders 26

4.1.1 The integrated approach 26

4.1.2 Flashback 27

4.1.3 Reaching out 31

4.1.4 Conclusion 35

4.2 Underlying reasoning and evaluation 36


4.2.2 Flashback 41


4.2.4 Conclusion 46

4.3 Collaboration 46


4.3.2 Flashback 53


4.3.4 Conclusion 56

5. An example: The Mammoth-approach 58

6. Concluding remarks 64

6.1 Conclusion 64

6.2 Discussion 65

6.3 Recommendations for future research 67

References 68


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ABSTRACT

Troublesome youth groups have been a hot topic for several years now and addressing these groups is

high on the priority list of the political agenda. The Hague deals with a large number of troublesome

youth groups and has numerous approaches implemented that are supposed to address these groups in

a sustainable manner. Fifteen informants have been interviewed to gain insight in implemented

approaches in The Hague.

Four approaches are central to this research: the general integrated approach, the Flashback-approach,

the approach of ‘reaching out’ and the Mammoth-approach. The emphasis within this research is on

the reasoning behind the implementation of the approaches, the evaluation of the approaches and on

the experiences of involved stakeholders in the collaboration with other involved stakeholders.

Results show numerous partners are involved in these four approaches and work together in

addressing troublesome youth groups in an integrated manner. While The Hague makes it seem as if

they work with evidence-based policies, it can be concluded the implementation of the approaches

lacks evidence-based reasoning and the effectiveness of the approaches lacks structural scientific

measurements. Solely the popular trend of working in an integrated manner, implementing social

interventions and experimenting with interventions seems to be a driving force.

The collaboration with other involved stakeholders has been experienced both positive and negative

by the informants. They recognize the relevance of working together with other partners and

acknowledge they have had more success together than they would have working on their own, but

this collaboration doesn’t come without struggle. The informants encountered problems in their

collaboration with other partners. Differing organizational cultures, organizational views and

organizational priorities cause stakeholders to clash and obstruct them in coming to a sustainable

solution to the problem. Struggles in activating neighborhood residents in the collaboration, whom are

seen as one of the most important partners in sustainably addressing troublesome youth groups, are

widely recognized by the informants within this research. The struggles that obstruct the collaboration

between involved stakeholders to run smoothly spring from different problem perceptions and

dissimilar frames of reference, which interfere with involved stakeholders being able to fully develop a

collective action frame.


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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction to the research topic

“Nederland telt 92 criminele bendes” – NRC.nl, 6 January 2010

“Opstelten: aanpak jeugdgroepen verloopt volgens plan” - Volkrant.nl, 10 October 2011

“Opstelten meldt forse daling criminele jeugdgroepen” – Volkskrant.nl, 5 April 2012

“Aanpak criminele jeugdbendes faalt” – NRC.nl, 15 April 2013

As the headliners from various Dutch newspapers above show, troublesome youth groups have been a

big topic in the recent years, especially from the moment minister Opstelten of the Ministry of

Security and Justice decided that all troublesome youth groups inventoried in the year 2010 had to be

addressed by 2013. These troublesome youth groups cause a lot of nuisance to other people, which is

common to be the number one source of annoyance among the Dutch population as a large part of the

municipal surveys show us. In particular, disrespectful behavior, nuisance, insults, intimidation and

petty crime form that source of annoyance (Dijkstra, 2010: 25). Research shows that three-quarter of

all youth crime in The Netherlands is carried out within troublesome youth groups. This is the main

reason for the intensified approach on troublesome youth groups. Since this intensification, we have

observed a decline of twenty-four percent in the number of troublesome youth groups in the year 2011

with respect to 2010. In total, the number of troublesome youth groups known in The Netherlands

dropped in the autumn of 2011 with respect to the end of 2010 from 1.572 to 1.165 youth groups, of

which 878 are incommodious youth groups1 (1.154 in 2010), 222 nuisance youth groups

2 (284 in

2010) and 65 criminal youth groups3 (89 in 2010) (Ferwerda & Van Ham, 2012: 1; Ministerie van

Veiligheid en Justitie, 2011: 2). In the year following that the total number of troublesome youth

groups dropped to 976 troublesome youth groups. Of this total number 731 were defined as

incommodious youth groups, 186 as nuisance youth groups and 59 as criminal youth groups. This

indicates a total decline of sixteen percent in the year 2012 with respect to 2010 (Ferwerda & Van

Ham, 2013: 3).

Ferwerda and Van Ham state that the more urbanized areas deal, on average, with larger

numbers of youth groups (2012: 1). As The Hague is one of the four biggest cities of The Netherlands,

also known as the G4, the number of troublesome youth groups is high. The most recently published

numbers are from the year 2011 and stated that there were twenty-three incommodious, fifteen

nuisance and six criminal youth groups present in The Hague. Next to that, The Hague also deals with

two criminal (youth) networks. The criminal (youth) networks consist of several criminal youth groups

that work together4. The used approach on troublesome youth groups is an integrated one; the

1 ‘hinderlijke jeugdgroepen’ 2 ‘overlastgevende jeugdgroepen’ 3 ‘criminele jeugdgroepen’ 4 Gemeente Den Haag (2011). Voorstel van het college inzake Integraal Veiligheidsplan 2012-2015 Den Haag.


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municipality – which holds a directing role – works together with the police, the Public Prosecution

Service, other chain partners (e.g. youth care, the Area Health Authority and schools) and citizens.

1.1.1 ‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’

In 2009 the Dutch police and the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations initiated and

implemented the ‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’ to streamline the nationwide approach on

troublesome youth groups. This approach was designed because seventy-five percent of youth crime in

The Netherlands emanates from the group or group dynamic processes, which makes the existence of

troublesome youth groups a serious problem (Ferwerda & Van Ham, 2010: 9). The approach starts off

with the shortlist-methodology, developed by Bureau Beke, which is used by the community police

officer and forms the basis of providing insight of the groups (Bureau Beke, 2010: 1; Ferwerda & Van

Ham, 2010: 15-17). The shortlist is a questionnaire that makes it possible to easily visualize the nature

and extent of troublesome youth groups within a certain district. Important to keep in mind here is that

the results of the shortlist are just snapshots and are considered as a very first inventory (Ferwerda,

2009: 5). On the basis of the shortlists the municipality, the Public Prosecution Service and the police

decide which groups need to be addressed. For each troublesome youth group a plan of action will be

designed.

As part of the ‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’ the action program ‘criminele

jeugdgroepen’ was developed early in the year of 2011. The first goal of this program is to have

addressed all the inventoried criminal youth groups within two years. This will be done by the

Ministry of Security and Justice in cooperation with different actors in the field, under the direction of

the Public Prosecution Service. The second goal is to have intensified the approach on incommodious

and nuisance youth groups.

1.1.2 Integrated security plan of The Hague

In 2011 the city of The Hague designed a new integrated security plan for the period of 2012-2015.

The security approach of The Hague consists of three central principles; (1) The Hague does what

works, and improves where possible, (2) hard approaches if necessary, soft approaches if possible, and

(3) cooperation is the key to success. One of the topics that holds a high position on the security

priority list of The Hague, and one that is strongly based on these principles, is the approach on

nuisance and criminal youth groups. The Hague has developed an approach that is combined of

repressive measures, preventive measures and aftercare and involves an integrated approach aimed at

the group, the environment and the individual. In 2011 The Hague was confronted by twenty-three

incommodious, fifteen nuisance and six criminal youth groups, and two criminal (youth)networks. The


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criminal (youth)networks consist of several criminal youth groups that work together in, for example,

burglaries and mugging5.

The troublesome youth groups are addressed within the form of local security networks, in

which public as well as private organizations and institutions work together to find a sustainable

solution for the problems these troublesome youth groups cause and to help the individuals back on

the right path. The municipality often takes on a directing role within the approach on troublesome

youth groups, but it is also possible that initiatives are developed by private organizations alone or

citizens. Involved parties can, for example, be: the police, supervisors, maintainers, security personnel,

schools, housing cooperatives, social work and religious institutions and citizens.

With so many different stakeholders involved, a few questions arise. Why is a certain approach chosen

to address a troublesome youth group? Who makes the decision to choose this particular approach?

When is a chosen approach perceived as successful? Who defines an approach as successful and on

what basis? How is the collaboration and coordination between different involved stakeholders

experienced?

These questions are central to this research. First I will explain more about the reasons why this topic

was chosen for my research.

1.2 TNO & BESECURE

At the age of 17, graduating from high school, I immediately knew what I wanted to study:

criminology. After a year of hard work I unfortunately failed to acquire enough credits to pass the first

year. I chose to switch to another study, sociology, which turned out to be a very good decision. I

loved every bit of it and graduated a few years later for my bachelor’s degree. After my bachelor I

switched universities and found myself wondering what I would like to research for my master’s

thesis. I’ve never lost interest in criminology and thought about topics that would combine my master

Culture, Organization and Management and criminological subjects, when I stumbled upon a vacancy

on Blackboard available for students of my master. The vacancy consisted of an internship at TNO,

conducting research on urban security in The Hague. I applied and soon heard I was one of the two

lucky ones that could start the internship. Therefore, this research is conducted under the supervision

and guidance of the Dutch Organization of Applied Scientific Research (in Dutch: Nederlandse

Organisatie voor Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek or ‘TNO’) and is a part of the project

Best Practice Enhancers for Security in Urban Regions (‘BESECURE’).

TNO stands for the connection of ‘people and knowledge to create innovations that boost the

sustainable competitive strength of industry and well-being of society’6. The department Networked

5 Gemeente Den Haag (2011). Voorstel van het college inzake Integraal Veiligheidsplan 2012-2015 Den Haag. 6 http://www.tno.nl/content.cfm?context=overtno&content=overtno&item_id=30&Taal=2

http://www.tno.nl/content.cfm?context=overtno&content=overtno&item_id=30&Taal=2


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Organizations of TNO is currently working on the three-year European project ‘Best Practice

Enhancers for Security in Urban Regions’ – BESECURE. The website of BESECURE describes the

project as follows:

‘The BESECURE project works towards a better understanding of urban security through

examination of different European urban areas. BESECURE collects and analyses best

practices in the area of urban security through case studies in eight urban areas throughout

Europe. By building a comprehensive set of indicators for urban security, along with best

practices from different urban areas, important cues about the state of security in urban

regions using factors such as social makeup, economic state, crime numbers and the public

perception of security become apparent. Based on this valuable knowledge, BESECURE

works towards the creation of a resource database that supports local policy makers to assess

the impact of their practices, and improve their decision making’7.

From a first orientation on what goes on in The Hague the project members of BESECURE found that

problems with troublesome youth (groups) and repeat offenders were most present. From my

criminological background I didn’t hesitate a moment and chose this topic as my research topic.

1.3 Research questions

1.3.1 Aim of the research

This research is not designed to just study the problems that occur with troublesome youth groups.

Because the BESECURE project is looking for best practices, this research will be looking for best

practices in the area of addressing troublesome youth groups. My research is designed to gain a better

insight in the approaches used in addressing troublesome youth groups in The Hague. Next to that, I

will be looking for organizations and institutions that are involved in these approaches and the reasons,

according to these involved stakeholders, why some approaches work and others don’t. Further, there

is an emphasis on the collaboration between the different involved stakeholders within this research.

Understanding how the collaboration is experienced by the different stakeholders can help understand

why used approaches are perceived as successful or unsuccessful.

1.3.2 Central research question

The following research question will help this research to come to an answer to the above addressed

affairs:

7 http://www.besecure-project.eu/project/project-description

http://www.besecure-project.eu/project/project-description


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“How is the problem of nuisance and criminality, caused by troublesome youth groups, addressed in

The Hague by different and heterogeneous stakeholders, and how is the collaboration between the

different stakeholders involved in this policy issue experienced?”

1.3.3 Sub questions

Five sub questions have been developed to answer the central research question as complete as

possible:

“Which approaches are used in addressing troublesome youth groups?”

“Which parties are involved in these approaches?”

“On what basis are certain approaches chosen to be implemented?”

“Which approaches are perceived as successful, by whom and on what basis?”

“How is the collaboration between the different stakeholders experienced?”

1.4 Delimitation

Because the range of implemented approaches and involved stakeholders in The Hague is too wide to

be able to include everything in this research I didn’t make a choice beforehand who I wanted to

interview. I chose to start with a few people and just went along with it. It resulted in a range of fifteen

informants of eight different organizations and institutions which had implemented four different

approaches. Because I didn’t set any limitations, for example, which areas in The Hague I wanted to

study or which troublesome youth groups I wanted to include, these limitations also arose from my

gathered data. Approaches used on incommodious youth groups are underrepresented in this research,

because not one of my informants worked with this specific group. This group doesn’t really do

anything wrong, they just hang around on the street, which makes it difficult to use an approach on

this group. Further, most of the approaches were implemented in the centre of The Hague which

includes a couple of deprived areas. These areas undergo the most problems with troublesome youth

groups.

1.5 Scientific relevance

Local security networks, evidence-based policies and troublesome youth groups are three topics that

are given a lot of attention to at this moment. This research combines these three topics and

contributes to the already existing scientific literature by applying it to a real life example from The

Hague. It gives insight in how theory works out in practice. Further, the larger part of Dutch scientific

literature on troublesome youth groups focuses only on characteristics of the groups, the effects the

group’s practices have on their surroundings and the approaches that are implemented to address these

groups. Very little scientific literature takes a closer look at the involved stakeholders, how they

collaborate with each other and how this affects the implemented approaches. Therefore, this research


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is of added value to the scientific literature on troublesome youth groups as well as collaboration

within integrated approaches.

1.6 Societal relevance

Next to the fact that troublesome youth groups are on the security priority list in The Netherlands,

troublesome youth groups are a hot topic in several other countries in Europe. This research will

provide a good starting point in the search for best practices concerning the addressing of troublesome

youth groups. As this research is part of the European BESECURE-project it gives other participating

European countries insight in the approaches that are implemented in The Netherlands, the do’s and

don’ts, and prepares them on what obstacles and problems can be expected in addressing troublesome

youth groups with regard to the collaboration with other stakeholders, the measurement of intervention

effects and their evaluation. Not only can other countries learn from this research, also organizations in

The Netherlands that are already part of approaches addressing troublesome youth groups or

organizations that are at the start of addressing troublesome youth groups can learn from it. Helping

involved stakeholders improve their approaches will improve the liveability of numerous

neighborhoods that deal with troublesome youth groups.


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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A few core concepts come to play within this research: security, troublesome youth groups, local

security networks, collective sensemaking and framing. This research will show these concepts are

inextricably linked. Theories on nodal governance will put the implemented approaches addressing

troublesome youth groups, formed within local security networks, into context. Theories on evidence-

based policy making will give insight in how approaches are created and evaluated and theories on

collective sensemaking and framing will give insight in what kinds of problems occur in the

collaboration within an integrated approach.

2.1 Troublesome youth groups

Troublesome youth groups have been a hot topic for a while now. It is known that committing petty

crime and causing nuisance is common among youngsters that are part of a troublesome youth group.

Aspects like anonymity of the group, power of the group or pressure of the group are of great

influence on individual members’ decision to participate in deviant behavior (Beke, Van Wijk &

Ferwerda, 2003: 9). Sutherland (1947) explains the deviant behavior within a troublesome youth group

as ‘differential association’: someone is more likely to behave deviant when that person is in contact

with other persons that show deviant behavior, like the other members of the troublesome youth

group. A wide range of literature points out different aspects as predictors of youngsters to join a

troublesome youth group: truancy or being less committed to school (Esbensen and Deschenes: 1998);

living in a deprived area where poverty, unemployment and social disorganization are not uncommon

(Curry and Thomas: 1992; Huff: 1990); unable to utilize legal means to gain success in life (Cohen:

1955; Cloward & Ohlin: 1960). The presence of troublesome youth groups causes a variety of

problems. The negative appearance of a troublesome youth group can influence the perceived safety,

neighbourhood residents perceive nuisance of the group and the criminal groups are responsible for a

percentage of the crime rates in a city.

In The Netherlands troublesome youth groups are divided into three categories, according to

the shortlist of Bureau Beke that is used by community police officers and youth workers to inventory

the groups: incommodious youth groups, nuisance youth groups and criminal youth groups. The

troublesome youth groups are categorized according to the problems they cause. The incommodious

youth groups are the groups that hang around, occasionally make some noise, but are still sensitive for

authority. The nuisance youth groups are provocative from time to time, harass bystanders, wreck stuff

and commit light forms of crime knowingly. They are less sensitive for authority. The criminal youth

groups have consciously chosen the criminal life and commit crimes out of financial gain, they use

violence and often have a criminal record (Beke et al., 2003: 25). Recently it was found that the

division into these three categories is not sufficient anymore, because not all members of one group


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can be given just one label, the composition of a group constantly changes and because members of

different groups work together; the latter makes the category of ‘youth network’ more suitable.

The problem of troublesome youth groups entails a variety of aspects, characteristics, causes

and effects, which makes it a complex problem. Lately, a trend of approaching such complex problems

by nodal governance is observed.

2.2 Local security networks

Thomas Hobbes (1651) was known for his theory that a monopolization of power and the existence of

a central authority were needed to accomplish a system of social order. Hobbes called for a ‘thin blue

line’, with which was meant that the police was the thin blue line that separated order from chaos.

Foucault and Latour contested this by stating that power is never centralized, but always decentralized

or nodal (Wood & Shearing, 2009: 12-13). These statements found its truth in the observed change

from a central-state world of governance to a nodal world of governance (Johnston & Shearing, 2003).

Manuel Castells is probably the one that had the biggest impact on the theory of nodal governance

with his work on the network society. Castells found that networks structure the social world,

including the world of law enforcement: ‘networks constitute the new social morphology of our

societies’ (2000: 500). Van Steden points out that there is not one general definition of governance,

but that a few different elements can be distinguished when it comes to governance: (1) relations

between organizations, from the public as well as the private sector, are being established to work

together; these relations are dynamic, organizations come and go, (2) demarcation of responsibilities is

fading, we can speak of a smooth continuum between gradations of publicness and privateness, (3)

organizations need to come to ‘collective action’, they cannot operate without each other, (4) a certain

reticence occurs, which makes organizations react in a limited way to control stimuli and (5) there is

no place for hierarchy within networks, every organization is equal (2011: 13). A decentralized,

horizontal, networked society has arisen: ‘this is the age of nodal security’ (Shearing, 2005: 58). With

security I refer to the protection and prevention of intentional harm (such as vandalism, organized

crime, terrorist acts or other deliberate human threats) (Bosch et al., 2004: 109, in: Duijnhoven, 2010:

15).

In the field of security specifically, nodal security is called a security network, defined as ‘a set

of institutional, organizational, communal or individual agents or nodes (Shearing and Wood, 2000)

that are interconnected in order to authorize and/or provide security to the benefit of internal or

external stakeholders’ (Dupont, 2004: 78). One important reason the world of security has developed

from the ‘thin blue line’ to the ‘security network’ is because we deal with wicked problems in the

arena of security. Wicked problems are problems that do not have standardized answers, because they

are highly complex, they exist within an ever-changing context and there are ambiguous assumptions

on what good solutions are (Rittel & Webber, 1973). The government is not able to deal with these

wicked problems by itself and searches for support with other organizations, the beginning of the


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security network in modern society. The notion of responsibilization stands on the basis of dealing

with these wicked problems: ‘Its primary concern is to devolve responsibility for crime prevention on

to agencies, organizations and individuals which are quite outside the state and to persuade them to act

appropriately’ (Garland, 1996: 452). This has lead to a turn in the system of policing; policing is no

longer monopolized by the public police, but is being offered by public institutions, private

organizations and citizens (Bayley & Shearing, 1996: 585). If we take a look at local security networks

we see that they are not entirely without hierarchical embedding. The security networks are in need of

someone that gives them guiding, and this guiding is often attributed to the municipality. The role of

the municipality is to organize local decisiveness (Broekhuizen, Van Steden & Boutellier, 2010: 22).

To be successful at this role of municipal direction, the municipality has to meet three conditions: (1)

the municipality has to be the one that initiates the development and implementation of local security

policies (coordinating collective activities, encouraging cooperation, managing stakeholders, seeking

alignment, creating consensus and monitoring progress), (2) the municipality has to be aware of

current situations, possess knowledge on the potential of organizations and possess substantive

expertise and (3) the municipality has to have the power to move people to do something, by being

able to (threaten with the) use sanctions (Broekhuizen et al., 2010: 23). The municipality makes sure

that all involved parties work together efficiently. These involved parties can, in general, be divided

into three groups: (1) risk managing institutions, e.g. the police, supervisors, maintainers and security

personnel, (2) normative institutions, e.g. schools, housing cooperatives, social work and religious

institutions and (3) citizens. The first group is primarily concerned with security, while the second and

third group are concerned with the communication of norms, values and ‘good behavior’, with the

third group using their social capital (Van Steden, 2011: 20). It is also possible that a group or multiple

groups initiate an approach on their own, without the involvement of the municipality. Provan &

Kenis define the former, in which the municipality holds a directing role, a network administrative

organization and the latter, without the involvement of the municipality, a participant-governed

network (2007).

The troublesome youth groups within this research are addressed within the form of local

security networks, in which public as well as private organizations and institutions work together to

find a solution for the problems these youth groups cause and to help the individual group members

back on the right path. The underlying reasoning for using a local security network is to disseminate

information quickly and foster innovation (Raab & Milward, 2003: 418). According to Shearing, the

networks are smarter and more energetic than slow bureaucratic governmental organizations, networks

are more responsive, and networks do not exclude parties that usually don’t have the means or power

to participate (Johnston & Shearing 2003; Wood & Shearing 2007). The idea of addressing complex

problems within local security networks or nodal governance has gained a great amount of popularity,

but the idea is not new. It’s an idea that seems to be recycled and seems to go in and out of fashion, as

Hoogenboom states, it is as an ‘addiction’ to popular concepts: ‘they are suddenly there, they become


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in fashion, become salonfähig and then disappear again. To return recycled again after a period of

time’ (2009: 65). Supporters of integrality point out the positive sides of local security networks. For

example, Tops (2001) states that integrality seems to be ‘a promising answer to the bureaucratic

pathology of the compartmentalization, the incoherent working of different organizational parts,

making competition, fragmentation and lack of coordination arise. Waste, irritation and poorly

maintained external relationship patterns are the result. Integrality is the magic word that should

remedy this deficiency’. De Klein (2001) states that integrality provides counterbalance to a ‘tunnel

vision’ (not really knowing what is happening in the city), compartmentalization (not knowing what

colleagues from other departments are doing) and ‘vakidioten’ (canonizing of, for example, finances

or the environment), but is also very aware of the downside of integrality or, in this case, local security

networks. De Klein (2001) explains that a few risks have to be kept in mind: responsibilities are

unclear, everyone interferes with each other, but no-one is responsible; sufficient room for maneuver

can decrease, because everything is connected to each other; it can lead to delays and powerlessness; it

brings a great need of coordination and associated costs with it. Eysink Smeets and Bervoets also

explain which difficulties come into play when working within local security networks, in their article

about ‘the untouchables’: the difficulty of getting all involved stakeholders together at the same time;

the difficulty of taking action with a sharp focus and enough intensity; the difficulty of being able to

act fast, instead of letting interventions end up on a waiting list; the lack of continuity, making the

focus of management, financing or staffing slip off to another problem; and the creation of

opportunities to hide from responsibilities, as De Klein had also mentioned (2001: 11). As Van Steden

says, ‘tensions and conflicts are the rule rather than the exception’ (2011: 5).

Another obstacle in the collaboration within local security networks can be ascribed to the

importance the government gives to the involvement of citizens, or neighborhood residents and store

owners, the ones that suffer most from the troublesome youth groups. Citizen participation in

addressing social problems is highly popular. The local security network needs the knowledge and

experiences of the ‘victims’ of the troublesome youth groups to be able to formulate effective

interventions and approaches and they need this same group of people to participate in the

implementation of these interventions (Edelenbos, Domingo, Klok & Van Tatenhove, 2006: 9). This

participation requires a great amount of motivation, energy and time from the citizens which if often a

dream too good to be true, especially in deprived, unsafe areas consistent of ethnical heterogeneity and

lacking social cohesion. Besides that, the lack of trust in the government and institutions among

residents of deprived areas is a fact and obstructs the collaboration in a local security network (Van

Stokkom & Toenders, 2010: 21). Victims of troublesome youth groups, living or working in deprived

areas, have lost trust in police and government which leads to a behavior of avoidance; they look

away, mind their own business and often do not report crimes to the police (Van Stokkom &

Toenders, 2010: 56).


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2.3 Collective sensemaking and framing

Decision-making in complex networks, like local security networks, are faced with uncertainty.

Koppenjan & Klijn (2004) divide uncertainties into three categories: substantive, strategic and

institutional uncertainty. Substantive uncertainty arises from ‘different problem perceptions and

dissimilar frames of reference because they can interpret available information very differently’

(Bortel, 2009: 173). These differing perceptions and interpretations can cause strategic uncertainty,

which means that involved stakeholders may have different objectives that ‘are not acknowledged or

are unknown to other participants’ (Bortel, 2009: 174). The last form of uncertainty is institutional

uncertainty, which involves the problems that arise because of ‘different institutional background,

bringing with them their own culture and values’ (Bortel, 2009: 174). There is a high possibility that

these forms of uncertainty, which are all present in the local security network, can cause problems

with the collaboration between the involved stakeholders of the local security network.

It all has to do with frames and framing. Reality is subjective; everyone constructs his or her

own reality. Frames can be viewed as the interpretative scheme of actors, they are of influence on how

people shape or perceive their world and these frames are also present in organizations. Being part of a

specific organization gives people a frame of reference and gives people certain perspectives on

problems and solutions (Schön & Rein, 1994, in: Klijn & Koppenjan, 2012: 591). The concept of

framing ‘entails the strategic projection of an actor’s frame on reality during social interaction’

(Merkus, Duijnhoven & De Heer, 2010: 4). Within a local security network, in which various

stakeholders with differing frames of reality participate, these differences can cause problems with

forming a collective action frame. Conflicts arise about what is important, what the issue is and what

should be done. The collective sensemaking, which is extremely important when working together

with different partners on one problem, is in danger within the local security network. Organizational

sensemaking is a social process in which ‘organization members interpret their environment in and

through interactions with others, constructing accounts that allow them to comprehend the world and

act collectively’ (Maitlis, 2005: 21). Organizational sensemaking occurs within the own organization

of each stakeholder and collides with the sensemaking of other involved stakeholders, making it

difficult to come to a collective sensemaking of the problem of troublesome youth groups.

The problems that come into play with framing and sensemaking make it very important to

realize that, within a local security network, different stakeholders are involved that need to be brought

together. Someone needs to be in control and keep in mind that every stakeholder has its own values,

while trying to develop a shared view of the problem. To be successful on the long-term as a local

security network it has to be clear to everyone what the core purpose is: “what do we stand for”

(Freeman, 2004: 231). If the values of a certain involved stakeholder do not support the core purpose

and core values of the local security network, and vice versa, the problem will not be able to be solved;

it will result in sub-solutions that only work for certain stakeholders (Freeman & McVea, 2001: 5).

Furthermore, it is important to identify all involved stakeholders and their interests, as the local


17

security network needs to satisfy their interests to stay successful in addressing the problem. This

includes the government and organizations, but also neighborhood residents and members of the

troublesome youth groups.

2.4 Evidence-based policies and evaluation

Evidence-based policies – ‘policy initiatives are to be supported by research evidence and (…) policies

introduced on a trial basis are to be evaluated in as rigorous a way as possible’ (Plewis, 2000: 96, in:

Sanderson, 2002: 4) – are very popular within organizations nowadays. Evidence-based policy making

seems to be a rational decision-making model, because it is based on several assumptions relating to:

‘the nature of knowledge and evidence; the way in which social systems and policies work; the ways

in which evaluation can provide the evidence needed; the basis upon which we can identify successful

or good practice; and the ways in which evaluation evidence is applied in improving policy and

practice’ (Sanderson, 2002: 5). These aspects assume that knowledge of the social world is objective,

while knowledge is socially constructed and culturally contingent: ‘knowledge is a fluid mix of framed

experience, contextual information, values and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating

and incorporating new experiences and information’ (Davenport and Prusak, 1998: 5). It cannot be

assumed that every stakeholder within a local security network ascribes the same meanings and

interpretations to evaluations of policy outcomes, which is linked back to the concept of framing,

mentioned earlier. Different kinds of knowledge that exist within each involved stakeholder that is not

shared with each other can cause problems with the evaluation of a chosen approach. Therefore, the

involved stakeholders need to go through a process of social learning to come to a collective

representation of knowledge, with dialogue and debate as the central means. By sharing knowledge

and dialogue the involved stakeholders develop a shared interpretative framework, whereby

knowledge has a binding capacity (Teisman, 2005). Because it cannot be assumed beforehand that the

involved stakeholders will be successful in reaching such a shared interpretative framework, we need

to keep in mind that, as Pawson & Tilley (1997) describe, the task – when looking at evaluation – is to

focus on what works, for whom, in what circumstances and why (in: Sanderson, 2002: 8). Coming to

such a conclusion shows to be not so easy as Lub describes in his book (2013). Lub focuses on the

evaluation of social interventions in neighborhood liveability, an important aspect of the problems

troublesome youth groups cause, as the groups reduce the neighborhood liveability with their

practices. According to Lub, social interventions are rarely based on scientific knowledge – non-

evidence-based policies – with regard to the assumed effectiveness of the intervention. Working with

interventions that are not based on evidence make it hard to measure the effects of these interventions

and Lub actually found that a great part of the interventions he studied don’t have any effects, weak

effects or even negative effects (2013: 222).


18

With what we know now, the relevant question is: how does all of this work out in practice? What

kind of approaches are implemented in a city that deals with a lot of troublesome youth groups, like

The Hague, and what are the outcomes of these approaches? Which stakeholders are involved in these

approaches and do these stakeholders encounter any problems within their local security network?


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3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Getting familiar with the research topic

As mentioned earlier, I didn’t come up with the topic of troublesome youth groups for this research

myself; the topic arose from a first orientation of the BESECURE-members on what was going on in

the field of security in The Hague. And even though I found the topic very interesting from the first

moment I didn’t know much about the problems occurring with troublesome youth groups and the

approach used on these troublesome youth groups in The Hague. I’m not from The Hague, I didn’t

know anyone that worked in the field of working with troublesome youth groups and I didn’t know

more about troublesome youth groups, even in general, than what I had occasionally seen in the

media. Therefore, I found it important I did some research on the topic before I started my actual

research.

The first thing that came to mind was contacting my father. He has been a jurist with the

Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations for a couple of years now and had recently been

working on giving legal advice to the new national police. I hoped he would know some people with

the police in The Hague that he could bring me in contact with and that the police would be my

starting point in the field. Unfortunately, my father didn’t know anyone working with the police in The

Hague, but he did send me an invitation to a lunch lecture at the Ministry of Security and Justice. This

lunch lecture took place in December and was given by Henk Ferwerda. The topic of the lunch lecture

was ‘Troublesome youth groups in The Netherlands: size, nature, backgrounds and approach’, which

obviously fitted perfectly with my research topic. During the lunch lecture I found out Ferwerda,

managing director at Bureau Beke, is the spiritual father of the shortlist-method, a method that is

central in the approach used on troublesome youth groups, but more on that later.

After hearing what Ferwerda had to say during the lunch lecture and talking to him for a brief

moment about the research I would be starting within a couple of months I became even more excited

about the research topic. I bought Ferwerda’s book and read various scientific papers to learn more

about the troublesome youth groups, while I got another invitation from my father to a lunch lecture in

January at the Ministry of Security and Justice, this time given by Etienne van Koningsveld, the

project leader of the national ‘Actieprogramma Problematische Jeugdgroepen’. The topic of this lunch

lecture was ‘Program Youth Crime and Youth Groups’ and gave me more information about and

insight in the integrated approach used on troublesome youth groups in The Netherlands.

3.2 Methods of data collection

This research can be divided into two parts. The first part includes the research on which troublesome

youth groups-approaches are implemented in The Hague and the second part includes the research on

the experiences and meanings that involved ascribed to the collaboration and coordination with other

stakeholders and the (successfulness of) implemented troublesome youth groups-approaches.


20

Therefore, the choice has been made to use triangulation, defined by Delzin as ‘the combination of

methodologies in the study of the same phenomenon’ (1978: 291). The used methods in this research

are desk research and two qualitative research methods: in-depth interviews and (participatory)

observation.

3.2.1 Desk research

I have conducted desk research to gain a preliminary insight in the approaches on troublesome youth

groups that are implemented in The Hague. I’ve read and analyzed several policy documents and

relevant websites as a first inventory. Examples are the integrated security plan of The Hague for the

period of 2012-2015 (‘Integraal Veiligheidsplan Den Haag 2012 – 2015’), the website ‘Wegwijzer

Jeugd en Veiligheid’ (www.wegwijzerjeugdenveiligheid.nl) which contains a lot of information on

problematic youth, troublesome youth groups, a database with successfully implemented approaches

in The Netherlands, research on the topic of problematic youth, interviews and manuals for designing

approaches, Ferwerda’s book ‘Jeugdcriminaliteit in groepsverband ontrafeld’ and websites of involved

stakeholders to look for information if they already had implemented approaches and if so, what these

approaches entailed. Further, I did a literature review on the topic of troublesome youth groups, used

approaches on troublesome youth groups and on the collaboration and coordination between

organizations.

3.2.2 In-depth interviews

I conducted in-depth interviews with fifteen employees of involved stakeholders to gain insight in the

experiences and meanings stakeholders ascribed to the collaboration and coordination with other

stakeholders and the (successfulness of) implemented approaches. The interviews are my main data

source for this research. The average length of the interviews is an hour, while a few only lasted for 45

minutes and others took two hours. All of the interviews have been recorded and fully transcribed. All

the informants agreed to the recording of the interview and to the use of their data for my research. I

also asked every informant if they were willing to sign a consent form of BESECURE, with which

they accepted that their data would be stored and used within the BESECURE-project. Six informants

signed the consent form, three haven’t signed yet, but did agree to sign, and the six remaining

informants did not want to sign the form.

3.2.3 (Participatory) observations

I conducted a couple of (participatory) observations. I attended a meeting of The Hague Security Delta

called ‘PPS Innovation Kickstarter Jeugdgroepen’, I joined a community police officer during a day

on the job and I observed the way informants interacted with me and the problems that arose in the

collaboration between me and the informants. I also planned to join a ‘streetcoach’ during a day on the

http://www.wegwijzerjeugdenveiligheid.nl/


21

job, but it appeared t cause some problems with other informants, so I chose to cancel this opportunity

of participatory observation and instead use the observation of the struggles it caused.

3.3 Access to the field

Because my first idea to enter the field through my father’s contacts failed and the contacts I made at

the lunch lecture didn’t work directly in the field of The Hague I turned to my supervisor at TNO.

Ingrid already spoke to a few people within the context of the BESECURE project and she asked four

people she had already interviewed if I could contact them. These contacts worked at the police, the

municipality and the Ministry of Security and Justice and were happily willing to schedule an

appointment with me. Because these first contacts worked in particular organizations and

governmental institutions I found it important to search for contacts from other parts of the field. I

chose to browse the Internet for general email addresses of organizations and just ask if someone

working in the field of addressing troublesome youth groups would be interested in scheduling an

appointment for an interview. Some were with success, other weren’t.

3.4 Sampling

With the first four contacts made I applied the snowball effect to gather more informants. The

snowball effect is a sampling procedure by which ‘[..] the researcher accesses informants through

contact information that is provided by other informants’ (Noy, 2008: 330). This resulted in five more

informants of which I eventually interviewed four. Next to that, I found two informants willing to

speak with me through the emails I sent to general email addresses found on the Internet. The

snowball effect was also applicable here and resulted in one other informant. Furthermore, one of my

fellow students also doing research in the area of The Hague on a different topic could bring me into

contact with one other person and last, I attended a meeting of The Hague Security Delta where

several members of various organizations were present to think about new partnerships and innovative

ideas in the field of addressing problematic youth. Through this meeting I came into contact with two

other people.

In the end I spoke to fifteen people, resulting in eleven individual interviews and two group

interviews. The informants are employed within the police, the municipality, the Ministry of Security

and Justice, ‘HALT, youth care, youth work, a school and the Public Prosecution Service. Two of

these interviews weren’t useful for this research; one informant didn’t work in the specific area of The

Hague and one informant didn’t implement an approach addressing troublesome youth groups,

because no problems occurred with troublesome youth groups in his field of work. Of the thirteen

informants that are left, eight people worked in management level positions and five people worked in

operational level positions. With one of the informants I also spent a day out in the field observing

what happened on the job.


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Table 1. List of informants.

Name Position within organization Organization

Linda Management level HALT

Yvonne Operational level HALT

Victor Operational level Organization of streetcoaches

James Operational level Youth work

Gerda Management level Municipality

Sabine Management level Municipality

Christine Management level Municipality

Brian Management level Police

Jeroen Management level Police

Chris Operational level Police

Michiel Operational level Police

Matthijs Management level Ministry of Security and Justice

Dorien Management level Public Prosecution Service

* The names of the informants are fictitious to guarantee their anonymity.

3.4.1 Obstacles in sampling

Even though a lot of people were enthusiastic about helping me gather information, I also experienced

some struggles. There were two struggles that were most prominent.

The first struggled I noticed was a lack of time. It could take weeks before someone answered

my email asking if they were interested in cooperating with an interview, even if the answer was ‘no’.

In a few cases people were willing to help me with my research, but then it took a long time before the

right person – that could provide me with the data I needed – was found or, if I was already in contact

with the right person, he or she found the time to let the appointment take place. This delayed me

substantially in my fieldwork and sometimes resulted in the fact that interviews couldn’t take place at

all, because it didn’t fit my own time schedule anymore.

The second struggle I encountered was a reluctance to talk to me. This problem occurred with

informants from one specific institution and emanates from earlier bad experiences from that

institution with European projects. ‘Time is money’, and this institution had spend a lot of time

working on other European projects in the past, while, in the end, they found themselves not seeing the

results of their invested time. It cost several weeks, if not months, of discussing their cooperation,

before I finally had permission to interview the informants. This obviously delayed my fieldwork in a

great extent and I was left with the feeling I couldn’t spend my time as fruitful as possible. This

struggle means I haven’t been able to gather all the data I could have if the decision to cooperate was

made in an earlier stage.


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3.5 Operationalisation

3.5.1 In-depth interviews

All interviews have been conducted in Dutch, because this both my informants native language as my

native language. I started of my interviews with a little introduction of myself, my research topic and

the BESECURE-project. Beforehand, I made a topic list with questions I wanted to ask, but indicated

to all my informants it was not a strict question list and we would see along the way where the

interview would lead. I wanted to give my informants the feeling that they would have room to tell

their story and feel at ease with telling the story. The first question I asked all my informants was if

they could give me a description of the troublesome youth groups in The Hague and the problems

these groups caused. I asked this question because it’s about facts, which makes it quite an easy

question to start the conversation with. I also asked this question to gain insight on how much

knowledge they actually had on the topic and how this could be related to their choices and evaluation

of implemented approaches. Following this question is the topic list below; the questions sometimes

were asked in a different order to keep in track with the story of the informant.

Background information

Could you give a description of the youth problems in The Hague?

Could you give a description of your role within the organization and what your responsibilities

are?

What task do you have in the implementation of the approach on youth groups?

Chosen approach

Could you give a description of the approach on youth groups in The Hague?

On what basis of information was this approach chosen? And where does this information come

from (implicit/explicit information)?

Collaboration

To what extent do you have contact with other stakeholders? What does this contact consist of?

What is your opinion on the collaboration with other stakeholders? Good/bad and why?

Are there any stakeholders that think differently that you know of?

Evaluation

Do you find the approach successful or unsuccessful? Why?

Has the approach been evaluated and if so, by whom?

What was the outcome of the evaluation?

What are the main improvements and what ideas do there exist for these improvements?


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3.5.2 (Participatory) observations

The first participatory observation I conducted was by attending a meeting of The Hague Security

Delta called ‘PPS Innovation Kickstarter Jeugdgroepen’. The goal of this meeting was to get various

public and private organizations together to brainstorm about innovative ideas in the area of

addressing troublesome youth groups and perhaps come to new partnerships. The participants of the

meeting were divided into groups of four or five people to brainstorm about the topic and I

participated in one of the groups. I listened to ideas and experiences of my group members, I

brainstormed with them about new approaches, I listened to ideas of other groups and the problems

they had encountered in the past with implemented approaches, troublesome youth groups and

collaboration with other organizations.

The second participatory observation I conducted was by attending a community police officer

a day out on the streets of one of The Hague’s deprived areas, an area that is known to have (had) a lot

of problems with troublesome youth groups. While we walked through the neighbourhood together I

listened to his stories, I observed the people on the street, I observed the way the police community

officer acted on the street, around his colleagues and around the neighbourhood residents. Although

we didn’t see any of the problematic youth out on the street, it did give me a better sense of the

neighbourhood they lived in and the way the community police officer interacted with neighbourhood

residents.

The third participatory observation I planned was with a so-called ‘streetcoach’, but I chose to

cancel this day. The reason for the cancellation was the reluctance of the person I was planning to join,

because there was a chance it could cause problems with other informants. I would have to ask for

permission and because of the delay it had already caused I chose to not go through with this specific

participatory observation. I realized I could use this hassle as an observation for my research, because

it indicated that people in the field were reluctant to share information with me and didn’t want certain

information published.

Last, I observed all of the struggles in trying to speak to people, for example, the reluctance of

informants to share information, permission that had to be asked to speak to people and informants

talking to each other behind the scenes about the research I was doing. These observations would be

useful for my research, because it showed that the approach on troublesome youth groups is a hot

political topic and information that would indicate that the approach on troublesome youth groups

wasn’t going as it should was preferred not to be published.

3.6 Analysis

I started with the analysis of every individual interview, looking for quotes that would give an answer

to my sub questions and eventually my central research question. This resulted in four central

concepts: ‘role’, ‘troublesome youth groups’, ‘approaches’ and ‘collaboration’. These four bigger

concepts include more than thirty sub concepts that made the problem, the implemented approaches en


25

the experiences with collaboration more insightful. The next step was to compare the interviews with

each other. I grouped the interviews into type of organization and I made a division between the

positions that informants held within an organization: management level positions or operational level

positions. It was important to see what experiences people from the management level and people

from the operational level had with the implementation of approaches and how they evaluated the

approaches, because the employees at the operational level are in the midst of the implementation and

employees at the management level often only give direction and/or make decisions on what

approaches should be implemented. Therefore, it was also important to compare the knowledge

employees at management level and employees at operational level had on the aspects of and problems

occurring with troublesome youth groups.

The observations I did complemented the stories my informants told me, but this time I was

able to see it with my own eyes and judge the stories as an outsider.

The qualitative methods used in this research result in a thick description. The term ‘thick description’

comes from Geertz (1973) and means that human behavior becomes meaningful through its context. In

this research, detailed observations have been done and the contexts that my informants work and live

in have been taken into account to produce the most meaningful results.


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4. RESEARCH RESULTS

4.1 Implemented approaches and involved stakeholders

The gathered data resulted in information about four different implemented approaches. One of these

approaches is a general approach; the remaining approaches are specific approaches.

I will give a detailed explanation on three of the approaches; the fourth approach will be

discussed into detail in the next chapter. I will also explain which and how stakeholders are involved

in every approach.

4.1.1 The integrated approach

The greater part of my informants didn’t speak of a specific approach, but spoke of the general

integrated approach. I talked about the integrated approach that is used to address troublesome youth

groups with seven of the informants, who are employed by the police, the municipality, the Public

Prosecution Service and the Ministry of Security and Justice. The reason employees of the police, the

municipality and the Public Prosecution Service only talked about the general integrated approach and

not about a specific approach is because these three are the core partners of the integrated approach

addressing troublesome youth groups, also known as the ‘driehoek’. Important to note here is that this

only applies to the criminal youth groups, because the Public Prosecution Service doesn’t deal with

troublesome youth groups that haven’t committed any crimes. In the cases of incommodious youth

groups and nuisance youth groups the municipality holds the directing role, in the case of criminal

youth groups the Public Prosecution Service holds the directing role on the part of criminal

investigation and prosecution while the municipality holds the directing role on the total approach.

The tasks of the fourth informant at the Ministry of Security and Justice involves giving advice to the

municipality and other partners and getting the different partners together to think about and work on a

solution for the troublesome youth groups, therefore he doesn’t have any information about specific

implemented approaches.

The integrated approach always begins with the shortlist designed by Bureau Beke. The

shortlist is an inventory instrument filled out by community police offers and is recently also filled out

by youth workers. It labels a troublesome youth group as incommodious, nuisance or criminal; this

label will help decide what kind of interventions should be used in addressing a group and it helps

decide which groups are given priority – the youth groups that cause the most nuisance are most

urgent. The prioritization is also done because the partners don’t have enough manpower to address all

the troublesome youth groups at the same time. The interventions are chosen within the

“Veiligheidshuis” and are part of a multi-track approach; the interventions focus on the group, the

individual and the domain, because the troublesome youth groups are a complex problem, with causes

of the problem found in any of these tracks. The goal is not to just punish the groups for the nuisance

they caused and/or the crimes they committed, the goal is to make sure the group members don’t


27

repeat offenses and don’t rejoin the group. A few examples of interventions are to get the group

members back into school, help them find a job and a house, organize street sports, get them and their

parents in youth care trajectories, establish ‘Buurt Preventie Teams’ and improve the liveability of the

neighbourhood by removing graffiti, cleaning the streets, installing camera’s, and placing street lights.

The three core partners get other organizations involved that can help implement the interventions.

Once the interventions have started the progress is monitored during deliberations on individual cases

in the ‘Veiligheidshuis’. The ‘Veiligheidshuis’ is designed to get different partners out of the field of

the criminal justice system, care and municipality together, support each other and share their

knowledge and information to make the approach as effective as possible, because the individual

organizations are not able to design a sustainable solution by themselves.

That is a ‘Veiligheidshuis’ where someone should be able to come with his problem, must be helped,

not solved, but must be supported, where you can take a look together with all the expertise you have

when you are not able to figure it out locally.8 - Gerda

4.1.2 Flashback

Two of the informants are employed at ‘HALT’, an abbreviation of ‘Het Alternatief’, which executes

the so-called Flashback-approach.

HALT is a national initiative of the Ministry of Security and Justice, municipalities and police

and provides youthful first offenders of minor offenses, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, an

alternative to being sentenced by the Public Prosecution Service. HALT offers community service and

has renewed this punishment in 2010 by including four aspects to the punishment: parents are

included, the children are obligated to offer an apology to the disadvantaged person(s), the contact

between Halt and the children is intensified and the children have to compensate any possible suffered

damage.

The Flashback-approach is designed specifically for troublesome youth groups and includes

all of the aspects of the standard HALT-punishment, but includes an extra aspect. The Flashback-

approach targets ‘overlastgevende jeugdgroepen’ or nuisance youth groups, because the

incommodious youth groups don’t commit minor offenses and criminal youth groups commit crimes

which are too severe to not let them be sentenced by the Public Prosecution Service. When a youth

group is brought in for committing minor offenses, the approach starts off with a conversation between

a HALT-employee and the individuals belonging to the group. The individuals are separated from

each other, so the conversations are not done in groups. The parents of the child are invited, and

obligated, to join the conversation. In this first conversation the offense(s) and the reasons why the

offense(s) were committed are discussed with the child; it is designed to search for motivations.

8 All quotations in this research are translated from Dutch to English.


28

This is followed by discussing with the parents what they think of what happened and how they

reacted. Also, a list of alerts – including subjects as school, friends, hobbies, etc. – is filled out to

estimate what situation the child is living in; with this list the chance of recidivism can be determined.

Last, the Flashback-approach is explained to the child and his or her parents. It is also explained that

the approach is not compulsory and they have the choice to go forward with the approach or not, but if

they do not choose to comply, they will be sent back to the Public Prosecution Service and end up with

a criminal record. The greater part of the children that are sent to HALT therefore comply with the

Flashback-approach.

The Flashback-approach involves attending three meetings of two hours, mostly taking place

in the evening at a place arranged by the municipality or by HALT. In general, during these meetings

the group will watch a movie which is stopped every night at a certain point in the story and the group

will discuss what has happened within their own group on the basis of what they have seen in the

movie with two HALT-employees. Linda explains why HALT has chosen to incorporate a movie into

the meetings:

Of course, it is always a lot harder to talk about your own group, but when you mirror it to a movie in

which it is really clear what is happening, like, ‘hey, how is that group composed, who belongs to who,

who is left out a bit?’ - Linda

In specific, every meeting has the goal of discussing a different aspect of the group and the offense(s)

the group has committed. During the first meeting the HALT-employees will discuss the group. The

goal is to find out which role every individual has within the group: who is the leader, who is the

follower, who is the joker, who is the black sheep? This is not only useful for the HALT-employees,

but also for the group itself, because the members of the group often don’t really realize which role

they have within the group. During the second meeting the group will be looking back on who did

what during the committed offense(s). The HALT-employees are already informed by this point on

what offense(s) was/were committed, because they receive a list from the police including the

offense(s). The goal of this discussion to make the individuals of the group aware of what they did.

During the third and last meeting the group discusses with the HALT-employees what to do next. If

someone was disadvantaged by the offense(s) committed there will be a confrontation of the group

with the person or persons in which the group will be apologizing for what they did. Next to that, the

third meeting is used to hand over the group to youth work.

The movie that HALT has chosen for these meetings is Mean Creek. Linda gives me a small

explanation about the movie. The movie is about a boy that is being bullied and his big brother, who

decides to get back at the bully. They both invite him for a birthday party and decide to go sailing with

a group of people. The idea is that they will play the game ‘Truth or Dare’ and make the bully walk

back home. That is the moment they decide to take revenge, but everything gets out of hand. The point


29

that HALT tries to make with this movie is that it is difficult to say which person in the group lets it

get out of hand. It shows that different dynamics come into play when you operate in a group and that

you will make choices in a group that you probably wouldn’t make if you’re alone. The overall goal is

to make the group members aware of group dynamics, make them aware of what they did was wrong

and make them think twice in the future about acting in a certain way when they are hanging out with

their group members.

Because when the youngsters are arrested, they often say, like, ‘yeah, but I didn’t do it’. And if all five

of them say that, then who really did it? Yes, the group. And then you see them thinking, like, ‘o right,

yes’. - Yvonne

When the three meetings have been completed, a last conversation between the individuals and a

HALT-employee follows in which they will evaluate what the children have learned from the

meetings, what they thought about the meetings and they will discuss if there is anything else that

HALT needs to know. Depending on how the children have participated in the meetings, positive or

negative, the case will be closed.

The Flashback-approach is an example of an integrated approach used specifically on nuisance youth

groups. Even though I only spoke to two employees of HALT, they both gave me details about their

collaboration with other organizations. HALT works together with the police, the municipality, youth

work, ‘Jeugd Preventie Team’ and parents of the children within the Flashback-approach. The actual

meetings are executed by HALT, but the other organizations all have their own important tasks within

the approach.

The first partner that HALT works together with in the approach isn’t an organization. The parents of

the children can be seen as a partner in the approach, because they are included by HALT as an

informant. The parents are asked to join the conversations in which they are asked what they have

done to this point to keep their child(ren) on the right path and how they think their child(ren) act(s) in

the group of which they are a member. Next to that, HALT also organizes a parental meeting in which

HALT will provide the parents with information on topics that are of importance to that specific

group. Examples are information on drugs or alcohol, but the meeting can also serve the goal of

getting different parents together and share stories with each other. Parents often don’t even know who

their children hang out with, where they hang out or what rules other parents wield.

The police have an important role in redirecting the troublesome youth groups to HALT. If the

police know about a youth group that committed minor offenses they will contact HALT, but it is also

possible the police send a group to HALT of which they don’t know the group hangs out regularly and

HALT finds out themselves. If the police already know, they will provide HALT with extra


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information about the group, group members and committed offenses. HALT and the police are also in

regular contact with each other, in which they share information about problematic youth, troublesome

youth groups and the progress of the Flashback-approach if it is executed at that moment. When the

Flashback-approach is completed HALT will organize a brief consultation with the youth detective

and community police officer or HALT will send a report to inform them whether the approach is

completed successfully, what was discussed during the meetings and what information came forward.

The community police officer usually will report back, on an informal basis, after a few weeks or

months how everything is going with the group. Further, they are both partners in the deliberations at

the “Veiligheidshuis” where individual cases are discussed and in the risk youth consultations

coordinated by the municipality.

The municipality is an important partner, because they finance the work of HALT. The

municipality usually also arranges a place where the meetings can be held. As mentioned above, the

municipality coordinates risk youth consultations and the municipality is also a partner in the

“Veiligheidshuis”, two important places HALT and the municipality meet and share information with

each other. During the meetings individuals, troublesome youth groups and places where a lot of

nuisance occurs are discussed.

We are in the ‘Veiligheidshuizen’ and we indeed also have, but then in a higher level, there are

consultations with the Public Prosecution Service and the police. [..] Yes, so we try to find as much

connection in that as possible. - Linda

HALT also works together with youth work. Youth work is invited to the third meeting to

carry over the group to them and to make sure youth work will go to work with the group after the

Flashback-approach is completed. After the group has been handed over to youth work HALT will be

contacted by youth work after two weeks to inform them on how everything is going, but after that

they don’t hear back from youth work. From this point HALT will have to trust in the work of youth

work.

The ‘Jeugd Preventie Team’ can be asked to join the closing conversation with the goal of

carrying the group over to them. HALT chooses to ask the ‘Jeugd Preventie Team’ if they want certain

group members or the whole group to start with a youth care trajectory, because via ‘Jeugd Preventie

Team’ the children don’t have to enter youth care the official way, with a screening, and makes it

easier to access. By inviting the ‘Jeugd Preventie Team’ to the conversation and not sending the

child(ren) and parents out the door with just a phone number HALT ensures they will go through with

the plan and that they are in good hands.


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4.1.3 Reaching out

Two of the informants do what is called in Dutch ‘outreachend’ work. They do not work at the same

organization – one informant works at a youth work organization and one informant works as a

streetcoach – and even though their tasks differ from each other, they both reach out to members of

troublesome youth groups on the street in order to help them get back on the right path.

Victor is a streetcoach and has been doing this work for seven years now. His job entails going out on

the street – Victor works in the city centre of The Hague, because the most deprived areas can be

found there – looking for troublesome youth groups hanging out on the street and making contact with

them. The goal is to keep in contact with them and gain their trust. The group members need to feel

comfortable with the streetcoach and the bond that is established between them almost needs to feel as

a friendship, but – important – it should never become a real friendship, the streetcoach always needs

to keep a certain distance.

Victor uses a certain tactic when he starts working with a new group. Before he makes the first

contact, he gathers information from the police and from the municipality to learn what kind of group

it is, who the group members are and what kind of problems they cause. He finds out where they

usually hang out and makes sure he is present at that specific spot before the group arrives. Then the

following happens:

And then they walk over, and then they think: ‘who is that, what is he doing there? [..] Well, and then

they look at you and they will come ask you what you are actually doing there. Well, and then I say:

well, I heard there was nuisance caused here, did you experience any of that? ‘Uhmmm… uhmm…’,

and then you just see their eyes twitching, and then they totally panic, because no one has ever

actually asked them that. And they don’t really know the answer to is, so then they say: ‘well, no

actually not, but…’. Then I say: ‘Oh, are you the ones that are causing the nuisance?’. ‘Yes’. ‘Oh, then

it’s you I need to speak to! What can I do for you’? ‘Yeah, I want a rocket, I want a slide, I want this, I

want that’. - Victor

From this moment Victor will regularly visit the group when they are out on the street; he will talk

with them, ask them things, hang out with them, everything that can be done to create a bond. This

takes a long time. It can take a year or even longer before he has really gained their trust and the first

group member asks him for help. This is Victor’s core task as a streetcoach; he needs to help them get

them back on the right path and does this by redirecting them to organizations and institutions that can

help them accomplish this. Examples are the ‘Jeugd Interventie Team’, the Area Health Authority and

youth care, but if Victor can help the group members with small questions like writing a letter of

application or attending them to an intake of some sort, he will do this himself.


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[..] the little requests for help, we solve them on our own, so to say. But the real aid, that doesn’t

belong to the streetcoach, so to say. It is the intention that we are on the street and that the aid is

done by other parties. - Victor

The target groups of a streetcoach are all three troublesome youth groups, but Victor made the

decision for himself to not work with criminal youth groups. He made this choice because the

members of a criminal youth group are difficult to influence and they often don’t want to be helped –

they chose the criminal life. As Victor says:

Actually they are all our target group. But, I’m not beating a dead horse. So you let the core know that

you’re there and that you will be there for them when they want to. And you will also try to get them

out of crime of course, but you often notice that it is totally pointless. - Victor

The targeting of incommodious youth groups is put on a back burner by Victor. These group members

usually still go to school, have a job on the side and don’t commit crimes or minor offenses and

therefore don’t need the help of Victor. Victor explains it did happen in the past – in a few rare cases –

that he helped out criminal individuals of troublesome youth groups or members of an incommodious

youth groups, but he usually sort of picks his ‘victims’ and chooses the ones of which he knows

beforehand the approach will have the most effect on.

But that doesn’t take away that I’ve also had leaders of group, also got them in my trajectory, or

guided them myself in the past, or at least pushed them in the right direction and that also goes for

the incommodious youngsters. They are definitely part of that too. So we actually target our work at

all youngsters that function within such a group or network, but yeah, of course you pick out your

victims a little bit, to say it in a negative way. - Victor

The project of streetcoaches is an integrated approach and is commissioned by the municipality of The

Hague. The streetcoaches report back on a regular basis to the municipality which the latter can use as

information that can be shared with other partners in the “Veiligheidshuis” or other consultations on

troublesome youth groups. The streetcoaches also receive information on troublesome youth groups

from the municipality, for example when the streetcoach starts working with a new group and needs

more information on the group, used as background research.

The streetcoaches also receive information from the police on troublesome youth groups and

they will share new information on the groups retrieved during their work with the police. This can be

things like nicknames of group members, the position members hold within the group, but the

streetcoach will also share information on committed crimes with the police if a group member tells

him about it, so the police can arrest that member. It also occurs that the streetcoach and the police


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have certain agreements with each other to make sure the relationship between the streetcoach and

group members is not disturbed. Victor works together intensively with one of the police stations of

The Hague and gives an example of such an agreement:

For example, I have the agreement with [name police station] – and of course that doesn’t always

work that way in practice, but in general it does work – that when the youngsters stand with me they

won’t be checked. [..] In that way you can reinforce each other and just work closely together, in my

view that works fantastic. - Victor

The streetcoaches also work together with the ‘Jeugd Interventie Team’, youth work and youth care. In

this collaboration the streetcoach serves as a referrer. After a group or group members are referred to

another organization or institution by the streetcoach they will stay in contact with each other to give

feedback on the progress of the individuals, either how they are doing in the streets or how they are

doing within the care trajectory. This will strengthen them both in their work, because they can

immediately act on it when they hear from each other if any problems occur.

Last, Victor works with residents that experience the problems that the troublesome youth

groups cause in their neighbourhood. To be truthful, I’m not sure if all streetcoaches work together

with residents, but Victor indicated that his own neighbors and residents of neighbourhoods he worked

in have asked him for advice. Victor tries to activate them and make them understand that they

shouldn’t take on the role of the victim, sit back, and expect others to solve the problems, because they

can do a lot themselves. Victor gives an example of him trying to get residents involved:

I said, just go up to those guys in the summer and say: are you thirsty? Would you like a glass of

lemonade from me? ‘Yeah, are you nuts, this and that, such and such’. Well, all these wild Indian

stories about why they shouldn’t do that. Until one of them did it. And all of a sudden she was the nice

neighbor. So every time that lady walked by they would wave at her, but when that lady said: ‘boys, I

want to go to sleep, you are bothering me, I have to get up early tomorrow’, they went to stand

somewhere else. So the problem was actually really easily solved. - Victor

James has been a youth worker for several years. The core business of youth work is to help youth

with their personal development by offering forms of leisure activities, education and care. One of

James’ tasks is dealing with youth and troublesome youth groups on the streets as well as indoors. The

youth centre, where various activities are organized, can be used as a way to make contact with

members of troublesome youth groups or the groups are found on the streets in what James calls

‘finding places’. The latter can be done randomly or on the basis of information retrieved from the

police, municipality or neighbourhood residents. James’ work has an emphasis on the ‘outreachend’

work or reaching out on the streets. In James’ work ‘outreachend’ doesn’t just mean connecting with a


34

group, but it also means drawing connections with the police, the ‘Centra Jeugd en Gezin’ and other

stakeholders with the purpose of working together on troublesome youth group case files.

According to James, the goal of reaching out to troublesome youth groups is ensuring

incommodious youth groups don’t develop into nuisance youth groups and ensuring nuisance youth

groups don’t develop into criminal youth groups. Just like Victor mentioned, for James it is not very

meaningful to reach out to criminal youth groups, because they are not open to help and have made a

clear choice for the criminal life. James does this intervening in a soft manner as he calls it; he leaves

the tough manner to the police. This soft manner can entail different interventions:

You have a couple of methods for it: you look up the informal leader; you can organize activities; you

can refer to professional aid; you can talk with the parents; you can stimulate the involvement of

parents; those are all methods you can use. I’m forgetting a few now. - James

James tells about a specific incident that occurred in the period between March and September of 2012

in the ‘Bomenbuurt’ of The Hague in which he executed his role as ‘outreachend’ youth worker. A

soccer cage was placed in the neighbourhood by the previous generation of youth, so everyone could

play soccer there. It resulted in a group of sixty youngsters causing a lot of nuisance. Examples of

nuisance given by James are driving on the streets, stopping cars on the streets and material damage. It

got completely out of hand and the soccer cage lost its original purpose. James therefore decided to get

his own colleagues from the neighbourhood and colleagues from other neighbourhoods together to

organize activities at that specific spot and made contact with the group members. They explained the

consequences of their behavior to them, with the result that some of the group members left and others

simply said: ‘I don’t care’.

And then there is one: ‘Okay, you’re right, because I really don’t want any fines’ and the other says:

‘yeah, what do I care?’, you know, with a The Hague’s accent. - James

The ones that stayed and kept causing nuisance were fined or arrested by the police, while youth work

kept explaining, and showing, the consequences of their actions until they got through to them. Youth

work shared information with community police officers, on an informal basis, about where they were

hanging out, who was acting out and who was doing well. The municipality had the role of overall

direction of the process, youth work focused on incommodious and nuisance behavior and the police

focused on committed offenses and crimes. After six months, the collaboration resulted in a peaceful

neighbourhood without any problems of nuisance at the specific spot. Some group members didn’t

come back to the soccer cage and others did, but they behaved according to the rules, without causing

any problems.


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As mentioned above, youth work works together with the police, the municipality, and the ‘Centra

Jeugd en Gezin’. In the case of the police the collaboration is mostly via community police officers.

They meet on the streets, they share information on troublesome youth groups, the give each other

feedback on developments within a troublesome youth group and they have certain agreements. The

municipality and youth work also share information with each other on troublesome youth groups.

Together with the ‘Centra Jeugd en Gezin’, the police and the municipality, youth work builds case

files on troublesome youth groups to address these groups as fruitful as possible.

Next to these partners, youth work also works together with youth care and the ‘Jeugd

Interventie Team’. In these cases youth work serves as a referrer and therefore redirects group

members to these organizations if they think it is necessary.

James also works together with resident associations and retailer associations. These

associations can provide input on what problems are occurring in the neighbourhood caused by

troublesome youth groups. James started in the beginning of this year with taking neighbourhood

residents to the hangouts and started organizing a workshop since the end of the year 2012. This

workshop teaches residents to take action themselves when they experience nuisance caused by


4.1.1 Conclusion

The approaches that my informants are involved in are the general integrated approach and two

specific integrated approaches: the Flashback-approach executed by HALT and the so-called

‘reaching out’ work executed by a streetcoach and a youth worker. The organizations my informants

are employed by work together with many different stakeholders. The police, municipality and the

Public Prosecution Service are the core stakeholders, involved in all approaches addressing criminal

youth groups. These core partners can ask a wide range of different organizations to get involved on

an approach, but these were not specified during the interviews. My other informants indicated that

they work together on their approaches with youth care, the ‘Centra Jeugd en Gezin’, the ‘Jeugd

Interventie Team’, the ‘Jeugd Preventie Team’, residents and retailers of the neighbourhood and

parents. Important to notice is that none of my informants spoke of working together with the

members of the troublesome youth groups, asking them what they think would really help them get

their lives back on the right track and stay away from troublesome youth groups and criminal

activities. Involved stakeholders do not recognize the youngsters as a stakeholder, resulting in talking

about them instead of talking with them.

A great part of the involved stakeholders take place in deliberations on individual cases at the

‘Veiligheidshuis’. These collaborations help each stakeholder to make the implemented approach as

fruitful as possible, because they usually are not able to find a sustainable solution to the problem on

their own.


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4.2 Underlying reasoning and evaluation


Because the decision to implement an integrated approach on troublesome youth groups was made on

a higher level than the work levels of the informants I spoke to, I wasn’t able to ask about the

underlying reasoning to choose this kind of approach. I did find information on the integrated

approach addressing troublesome youth groups in the security plan of The Hague for the period of

2002 – 2006, the integrated security plan of The Hague for the period of 2012 – 2015 and the

‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’.

The ‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’ was designed in 2009 by the police and the Ministry of

Interior and Kingdom Relations. The purpose of this plan is to have addressed all troublesome youth

groups by the end of 2012. The ‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’ is a nationwide approach; the city

of The Hague also designed an approach addressing troublesome youth groups itself.

Security was one of the topics on the priority list in The Hague’s security plan of 2002 – 2006.

Both the Mayor and Executive Board and residents of The Hague agreed on the prioritization of

security and it has been on the top priority list ever since. The approach of The Hague combines

prevention, repression and enforcement action. The purpose is to both fight and prevent insecurity.

This policy is continued in the integrated security plan of 2006 – 2010 and 2012 – 2015. One of the

points of attention of the chosen security policy in the integrated security plan of 2012 – 2015 is the

addressing of troublesome youth groups by an area-, person- and group-oriented approach. For the

integrated security plan of 2012 – 2015 The Hague’s residents were asked again what they found

important and the survey results showed that the residents endorsed the main lines and priorities of the

integrated security plan. Three aspects of The Hague’s security approach are continued in the

integrated security plan and are outlined below.

The Hague does what works, and improves where possible

The Hague decided on carrying on approaches that have proved to be successful in the past. The

integrated security plan indicates that reports on violence committed against persons have dropped

since 2009 and improvements have been made in the area of robberies, muggings and burglary. On the

other hand, the Mayor and Executive Board is worried about the criminal youth groups, because they

still see a growth in the number of repeat offenders. The Mayor and Executive Board stays positive

and states to be working on the approach addressing criminal youth groups:

But the Mayor and Executive Board does what works and the Board keeps putting the instruments

that have proven to be effective into working. With that, the Board keeps adjusting the approach to

the circumstances and improves where possible (Gemeente Den Haag, 2011: 2).


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Hard approaches if necessary, soft approaches is possible

Hard approaches are executed in the area of security and criminality where necessary. Hard

approaches imply, in the case of The Hague, area-oriented and visible interventions focusing on

regaining security. Soft approaches are executed in the form of preventive measures.

Cooperation is the key to success

The Hague sees a solution in cooperation, in which the municipality, the Public Prosecution Service,

the police and residents of The Hague are the core partners. The Hague wishes to involve citizens and

give them an important role in the fight against insecurity, together with other stakeholders.

While the integrated security plan shows they are successful in some areas, like a decrease in violence

against persons, muggings, burglaries and robberies, but at the same time shows there still needs to be

some work done in the area of criminal youth groups, the evaluation of the ‘Masterplan Aanpak

Jeugdgroepen’ shows similar results. On July 5, 2012 Minister Opstelten noted in a letter directed to

the Dutch Second Chamber that the approach addressing troublesome youth groups was on track, but

the evaluation done by the WODC (‘Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum’) showed

that there is still much to gain (Van Burik et al., 2013). The evaluation got some media attention and

resulted in news articles titled, for example, ‘Aanpak criminele jeugdbendes faalt’. The problem is that

the ‘Masterplan Aanpak Jeugdgroepen’ only focuses on the troublesome youth groups that were

inventoried in 2011 and doesn’t focus of troublesome youth groups that have developed in the

meantime. Next to that, Minister Opstelten states that the greater part of the criminal youth groups

have been addressed and that the approach therefore is on the right track, but ‘just addressing’ these

groups doesn’t really say anything. A group can be addressed, but still cause nuisance and commit

crimes after the intervention, it doesn’t necessarily mean a change in behavior. It seems to be a smart

way of word use to say something positive about the approach – framing their implemented

approaches in a successful way. It is also important to notice that there is mostly spoken about the

criminal youth groups and almost nothing is said about the incommodious and nuisance youth groups,

almost like they were forgotten, while the approach also is supposed to be preventive, next to the

prioritization of criminal youth groups – one of the goals is to prevent the incommodious youth groups

to develop into nuisance youth groups and to prevent the nuisance youth groups to develop into

criminal youth groups. Also, the shortlist designed by Bureau Beke serves as an inventory list to

determine in what category a troublesome youth group can be placed, which should eventually result

in several approaches designed specifically for a group, including all groups, not just the criminal

youth groups.

Some of my informants support the evaluation of the approach addressing troublesome youth groups,

while other informants strongly disagree with ‘being on the right track’ and state that the implemented


38

approach has been completely unsuccessful. None of the informants seem to be really enthusiastic

about how the approach is working out.

As each approach starts off with the inventory composed with the help of the Beke-shortlist,

you would expect this shortlist is fully optimized, but the remarks of the informants show the contrary.

Every single one of the informants stated that the Beke-shortlist is outdated, because you can’t put the

groups in such strict categories. The troublesome youth groups are dynamic, they change every now

and then of composition, the members within a group consist of criminals, members who only commit

minor offenses and members that only hang out on the street causing a little bit too much noise, and

most important, they also operate in networks instead of just in their regular group when they are

commit crimes. Further, the purpose of the Beke-shortlist changed from an inventory-instrument to a

management tool, while this change was never supposed to happen:

[..] that Beke list is nice, but it doesn’t actually say anything. - Gerda

It is used as some sort of management tool while it was never meant to be used in such a way. And it is

not really about youth groups, it is about networks. - Chris

The informants that are closely linked to the Mayor and Executive Board all work in management

level positions within different organizations and they were the ones that stated, at first, that the

approach is going well, but also noted that there is always room for improvement. Later on, they also

showed some negative feelings towards the approach. I noticed they were, at first, hesitant to make

strong statements and preferred to be a little bit vague about their opinion on the progress of the

approach, but were less reluctant to give their opinion once the conversation progressed. Various

remarks within this line were made. Some of the informants stated, for example, they didn’t

understand why criminal youth groups were given priority and implied that the incommodious and

nuisance youth groups needed to be given more attention:

[..] that one can’t be saved, he chose a criminal career and then I actually wonder why we, for that

person, still put so much energy in it. That is completely unclear to me. But in the meanwhile they

keep complaining we suffer money shortages and that we have a too big of a caseload. This is beyond

me.

- Brian

But you haven’t accomplished anything with just the arrest. It is about what to do after that? You can

lock someone up, but then they become… The experience is, as research shows, they only get smarter

from it. Because they will come in contact with the wrong people. So that doesn’t help either. You

have to keep them out of prison as long as possible. - Matthijs


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There were also those that weren’t as subtle in their opinion on the approach. One of my informants

was very clear about his opinion and wasn’t afraid to say it. It is important to note here that this

particular person works in an operational level position, deals with the reality out on the streets day in,

day out, and doesn’t have close ties with the Mayor and Executive Board.

[..] I call it a sort of chain approach, but in theory it all sounds really great, but in practice little comes

of it at all, that’s what I see. - Chris

Look, the ones that work in professional aid, they don’t get a grip on it. The people doing the

rebuilding in the neighbourhood, they don’t get a good grip on it. The municipality itself doesn’t really,

it is difficult for the police. Yeah, and then it is a little bit of the ‘sticking-plaster’ approach. And just

hope it doesn’t get out of hand. - Chris

It gave me a feeling as if the informants working in management level positions wanted to protect

their employers who made the decision to implement this approach. It also gave me a feeling as if they

didn’t really know what the problem of troublesome youth groups in The Hague entailed. While

informants in management level positions said things like ‘I don’t exactly know’ and used words like

‘in general’, ‘globally’ or ‘at the abstract level’ as an answer to my question what the problems with

troublesome youth groups in The Hague entailed, informants in operational level positions gave me

detailed explanations of the problem. There appears to be a gap between the policy makers, the

problem and the people that need to execute the approach. This gap makes the collaboration between

involved stakeholders to not run smoothly and makes executing a good intervention a lot harder.

It also seems strange that The Hague chose to continue with the work that already proved to be

successful and to improve the work that needed adjustments. From the comments made by the

informants it became clear that you can’t really say which intervention actually worked, which

intervention didn’t work and what the exact outcomes of an intervention are, because the problem is

too complex, like Lub also discovered in his research on social interventions. The integrated security

plan makes it seem like their interventions are evidence-based, but no-one ever really studied the

outcomes of an implemented approach. Next to that, it is also possible that other forces come into play

which have nothing to do with the implemented approach. Below are some examples of what the

informants had to say about this point:

Yes, you are only able to measure if something has been successful if you can also demonstrably say

something has reduced. But the trouble with something like a youth group and nuisance is, it is not a

production process, right? Where a hundred cookies go in and a hundred come out. It always depends


40

on a thousand and one things together. I mean, when a youngster moves away, the nuisance goes

down. But was that the effect of the approach or because he is causing the nuisance in Ypenburg now?

- Jeroen

At the same time, it is also complex to say if it did or didn’t work. Because how do we measure that?

Do you have any idea? How are you supposed to measure that? If something works or doesn’t work?

Jack is a member of a criminal youth group, commits robberies, burglaries, does everything that’s

wrong. The image you see now is that he gets a measure when he is 16. He goes to jail and gets out

again. When he is 18 he keeps doing it. Then he turns 21 and still commits robberies and muggings,

blablabla. But then he turns 23 and he doesn’t do it anymore. But between his 22nd and 23rd he got a

really sweet girlfriend, that says: ‘one more time and I will dump you’. What is it that worked? All

those interventions or that relationship? - Matthijs

[..] but really globally, when I look at [name of troublesome youth group] now, at the integrated

approach, the only hard, measurable success is what we as the police have done at the criminal

investigation department, because they are physically locked up. - Jeroen

It could be possible that the reason an evaluation of the approach hasn’t taken place is because of the

complexity of the problem and the difficulty to measure the results of an intervention, but most of the

informants couldn’t say anything about an evaluation. Two of the informants said something about an

evaluation, but one of them couldn’t give me any details and the other stated that brief evaluations had

taken place, but not nearly enough as they should have:

I know evaluations are done, that is done under the direction of the municipality and I don’t know how

that exactly works. [..] Every approach is evaluated, there is always something to learn. - Matthijs

Once in a while there is a short evaluation, but not as structural as we would want it. I believe

occasionally now for the tripod, there is a brief evaluation or something, but we haven’t rounded up

that many groups yet. And the end evaluation actually should be done more often. - Dorien

As in the last quote by Dorien can be read, not a lot of groups – in this case criminal youth groups –

have been addressed completely. This shows us that the approach addressing this type of group hasn’t

been very successful and this matches the remark made in the integrated security plan. Despite this,

the integrated security plan states that The Hague’s security approach works. Several informants

mentioned that the mayor and Minister Opstelten will never say they have been unsuccessful with

their approach and covering up failures is just a part of the world of policies. The informants made

different remarks on this topic:


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Look, a mayor will not say ‘my policy doesn’t work’. When it comes to that level, it is always… Of

course, there are always points of improvement, but a mayor will never say ‘my policy doesn’t work’.

- Matthijs

And now you see with a lot of things, the municipality uses as a strategy I think, that you keep it vague

beforehand, so afterwards you can always say you’ve been successful or say ‘well, at least we’ve made

some steps in the right direction’. - Jeroen

Yes, that [the newly developed troublesome youth groups that are not a part of Opstelten’s inventory]

is not what the accountability is about, that is really sneaky. - Dorien

That it’s a success. Yes, of course. That is their plan. [..] They [troublesome youth groups] don’t exist

anymore, no. Not on paper. [..] But that’s not the truth. - Chris

The quotes above show a smart way of framing the goals and outcomes of an approach, to be sure it

will always look as if the implemented approaches have been successful.

We can conclude that the decision to implement the general integrated approach on troublesome youth

groups is made by Minister Opstelten and the Mayor and Executive Board of The Hague. Although I

didn’t find a lot of information why the integrated approach is chosen, it did came forward from the

integrated security plan that The Hague does what works, and improves where possible. Unfortunately

it seems, from statements that my informants made, that evaluations of approaches are rarely done and

therefore it doesn’t add up with the ‘The Hague does what works’-approach, because evidence-based

policies or interventions need to have been evaluated before you can say it worked. Next to that, it has

been said by Minister Opstelten and the Mayor and Executive Board that they are on the right track

and did succeed in some areas. My informants seem to disagree. Some are subtle in their statements

and try to cover for their bosses a little bit, while others are very direct and strongly disagree with

success stories. While my informants, both management leveled and operational leveled informants,

are the ones that implement and execute the approach, the higher leveled people seem to be the ones

that decide if they have been successful or not. This successfulness seems to be based on how many

troublesome youth groups (of the inventoried groups of 2010) have been addressed – with successful

results or not – and falsehoods, because no-one will ever say their own policy doesn’t work.

4.2.2 Flashback

The informants employed by HALT weren’t able to provide me with any details of why the

Flashback-approach was chosen to address the troublesome youth groups that are brought in. It was

surprising to see that the informant working in a position at operational level knew more about the


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underlying reasoning of the implemented approach than the informant working in a management

leveled position. Linda, who works at the management level, was able to tell me that the approach was

developed within their facility and that the approach was developed about two or three years ago. She

wasn’t really sure about her answer and it turned out the approach was implemented for the first time

in 2008, as Yvonne explains to me. Yvonne tells me they stumbled upon a group in 2008 and

discussed this group together with the municipality and the police. At that time Wim van Hees worked

at HALT, who developed the Flashback-approach. A brainstorm about what to do with this specific

group followed and the Flashback-approach came out as the answer. Ever since the decision to

implement the Flashback-approach on troublesome youth groups the approach only has been executed

three times in The Hague. It turns out to be more difficult to execute the approach than expected, for a

number of reasons:

[..] we do often have groups at Halt, but often, well, not severe enough, that it’s not necessary, or it

wasn’t a group where the dynamics played such an important role, or the group is… You maybe only

have three out of twenty members of the group at Halt, then you can weigh up the situation of ‘does it

make sense to do this’? So that… Yes, there are a couple things that play a part in the difficulty to

execute it on a regular basis. - Linda

This approach has been here for a long time already, only to get the right group signed up, so to say, is

just difficult. Because when the police thinks it’s a group while the youngsters don’t actually know

each other that well or don’t hang out that often with each other, than you can’t speak of a group and

it kind of fails, so it won’t work. - Yvonne

Because the approach has been executed so few, it is hard to evaluate the approach and to determine if

the approach has any effect, but evaluations have been done after every completed approach. Yvonne

gives the example of the group in 2008, which has been evaluated together with the municipality and

the police and after that the community police offer had monitored the group and indicated to HALT

the neighbourhood had been a lot quieter than before. The quiet neighbourhood seemed to indicate that

the approach had been successful, but nothing is said about the impact the approach had on the group.

Surprisingly, Linda stated that evaluations haven’t been done yet, but she did indicate that the

approach has been successful, based on feedback from group members that went through the

Flashback-approach and experiences of colleague’s that executed the approach. It are little things that

have shown the approach successful to her, like someone that told her that realized the group was

doing something wrong and decided not to go through with it or a colleague that told her they had seen

eyes opened during the meetings. A change in behavior is the indicator for success.

The indicators of successfulness mentioned above are formed by informal feedback and are

not based on actual measured effects. Despite this, the informants were enthusiastic about the


43

approach and implied that the approach was successful. It seemed as if the rounding up of the

approach indicated that HALT had been successful and it didn’t really matter what happened next with

the group. They briefly keep in contact with the organizations that work with the group after the

approach is completed and receive feedback on the group once or twice, but Linda explicitly said that

when the approach was completed, they were done with the group:

From the moment they are done here, then we close a case and then, basically, they are out of the

picture for us. - Linda

Linda did indicate she would like to stay in touch more with the organizations that the groups are

referred to, to see how the group is doing after they are done at HALT. This could also give HALT

better ideas about what effects the Flashback-approach has on a troublesome youth group. Further,

Linda also indicated she wasn’t pleased with the amount of times that the Flashback-approach had

been executed and she tried to find a solution to this problem; Linda thought of implementing the

approach as a preventive approach. This meant that a group didn’t have to commit an offense

beforehand, but the struggle would be that the group had to attend the meetings voluntary. At that

moment Linda was still in deliberation with the municipality to use the approach in a preventive way,

but when I spoke to Yvonne the approach was being executed at that moment as a preventive

approach. I was given the opportunity to speak briefly with Yvonne’s colleague who executed the

meetings and she told me the approach was going alright, but a lot of things could be improved. HALT

wasn’t given detailed information about what the problems caused by the group entailed, HALT was

only given one day to prepare and two of the group members didn’t show up at the second meeting.

The third meeting had not taken place yet, therefore it wasn’t evaluated yet. Yvonne’s colleague was

hopeful for the preventive approach, but there still were a lot of points for improvement.

It can be concluded that the Flashback-approach, developed by Wim van Hees, was chosen to be

implemented as a solution to one specific troublesome youth group and from that point was made into

the standard HALT-approach to address troublesome youth groups. Details on why this specific

approach was chosen were not available from my informants. Since 2008, the approach has been

evaluated after every completion, but the approach only has been executed three times. The evaluation

is done by HALT, the municipality and the police, and informal feedback is received from

organizations that the group is referred to or the community police officer that works in the area where

the group often hangs out. The informants find the approach successful, but this is mostly based on the

completion of the approach at HALT only and based on occasional informal remarks made by

involved people. A structural measurement of effects doesn’t take place, which makes it hard to state

that the approach actually had any effect.


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4.2.3 Reaching out

James explains that the decision to use outreaching work at youth work as an approach to address

troublesome youth groups is preceded by years and years of deliberations within the organization.

Constant discussions to find out ‘who are we’, ‘what are we doing’ and ‘where are the opportunities’?

These deliberations can be defined as informal consultations within the team and are complemented by

continuously sensing if the other involved stakeholders follow the same line. It is very much focused

on an integrated approach.

As mentioned above James had implemented a specific approach together with other

stakeholders in the Bomenbuurt, which resulted in a peaceful neighbourhood without any nuisance

caused by the troublesome youth group that had hung out there. They had been successful, because the

involved stakeholders noticed the nuisance disappeared, but an actual evaluation hasn’t been done.

James recognizes the difficulty with naming the effects of outreaching work, but is sure about the

successfulness of this specific approach:

Well, that is always the hard thing in the aid, naming your results. When a situation of nuisance like

last year occurs for example, then I can say, we’ve done this and this and this and then we can see it

helped. And if you start analyzing, like, did I do my part, the community police officer did his part, he

did his part and we can see that it has reduced and we also know from experience that if you do

nothing it increases, then we can just say, it worked. - James

The effects of an approach seem to be measured more by gut feeling than by scientific evidence.

The outreaching work of streetcoaches is commissioned by the municipality of The Hague.

Streetcoaches are seen as the partner operating in the field between the field of police and of youth

work. They make contact with the troublesome youth groups, build up relationships of trust with the

group members and try to influence their behavior in a positive way, while the police usually didn’t

count nuisance as their primary task and youth work only provided help and never corrected (Loef,

Schaafsma & Hilhorst, 2012: 17). The eventual goal of the work of streetcoaches is to bring safety and

security back to the neighbourhood through the change of behavior of troublesome youth group

members and therefore serves as a preventive area-oriented approach. The choice to implement the

streetcoach-project seems to be experimental as there isn’t any Dutch scientific literature known that

shows what effects the streetcoaches have and the fact that the effects of one single approach in such a

complex field is hard to measure also goes for the streetcoaches. This is also the reason questions have

been asked by the Dutch political party PVV about the streetcoaches. It recently got a lot of attention

in the media, also due to the publication of Vasco Lub who studied the effects of social interventions

and concluded that the effects of streetcoaches are at its best doubtful. Victor agrees that it’s difficult

to say if the approach has been successful or not, but that you have to rely on your gut feeling.


45

So it is really difficult to actually say something meaningful about it. But your gut feeling actually says

enough, it just says, you know, we did make some progress with a couple guys. - Victor

Victor also tells me that, even though it’s a complex problem, he did notice some results from the

work he had done with troublesome youth groups, which he is obviously very proud of:

But I absolutely think that with a certain percentage, that at least a little bit of change in behavior has

taken place. And even though it is only the first step, or the ball that starts rolling, I think that you’ve

already come a long way. That those guys are even prepared to go to professional aid, just that is a

huge pay-off. So yes, there are definitely success stories, but there is still a shortage of examples,

because it is just… Yeah, it is just a really difficult matter and a really difficult group to work with.

- Victor

[..] and sometimes also from the youngsters themselves, that they give you a call all of a sudden, like,

‘yeah, I spoke to you two years ago, I was a real scumbag back then, but now…’. Well, and I’ve also

been thanked by those guys, that they really thank you, because you gave them the first push.

- Victor

While Victor is very enthusiastic to tell me his story and the work he is proud of to be doing, I noticed

I had gotten myself into a delicate issue. Other people weren’t that happy I spoke to Victor about the

streetcoach-project and rather kept the subject under the radar. Victor also told me he would be glad to

take me with him for a day to show me what his job entailed, but doubted the enthusiasm of his

commission company about this plan. This all had to do with the attention the PVV had drawn to the

streetcoaches, which made this a very bad time to bring out possibly negative stories.

The streetcoaches report back to the municipality on a weekly basis, they join a weekly briefing at the

police station and they meet with the municipality every month to discuss where they stand. On the

basis of all this information some results have been formulated by the municipality: streetcoaches have

referred forty families to care trajectories; group members, neighbourhood residents and retailers are

enthusiastic about the streetcoaches; nuisance caused by troublesome youth groups at designated

places is under control or reduced, which means the streetcoach-project has been successful according

to the municipality. The Mayor and Executive Board of The Hague also indicates that the number of

reports of nuisance caused by youth has dropped with thirteen percent and crime numbers with seven

percent, but the board is also very aware of the fact that it can’t be scientifically measured that the

streetcoaches had any part in it, just like any other social intervention9.

9 Gemeente Den Haag (2013). Beantwoording schriftelijke vragen van het raadslid J.C. van der Helm.


46

At this point we can conclude that the work method of James was chosen on the basis of years of

deliberations on what was needed and what could be done and that the streetcoach-project was chosen

to be implemented by the municipality of The Hague to fill the gap in the field between the police and

youth work. Both work methods don’t seem to be based on scientific evidence. The specific approach

James has executed in the Bomenbuurt was evaluated as successful by involved stakeholders based on

the fact that it was much quieter in the neighbourhood, but is not based on scientific measurements.

The streetcoach-project also has been evaluated as successful by the municipality, because nuisance in

specific places is under control or reduced and because crime rates and reports of nuisance have

dropped, but these results can’t be directly pointed out as results of the streetcoach-project.

4.2.4 Conclusion

The choice to implement the general integrated approach was made by Minister Opstelten and the

Mayor and Executive Board of The Hague. From this general integrated approach various specific

integrated approaches were chosen to be implemented, like the Flashback-approach and the

outreaching work. The Flashback-approach was implemented after different stakeholders had

encountered a troublesome youth group of which they thought this approach would work. The

outreaching youth work of James is preceded by years of experiences and deliberations within his

organization and the outreaching streetcoach work of Victor was chosen to be implemented by the

municipality to fill the gap between the work of the police and youth work.

All approaches that came forward in this research have been evaluated as successful, whether

they truly were or weren’t. The general integrated approach is said to be successful by Minister

Opstelten and the Mayor and Executive Board of The Hague, or at least on the right track. This result

mostly seems to be of political importance, because they will not contradict their own chosen policies.

The informants seem to disagree with the successfulness of the interventions that have been done up to

this point. It seems like it is more important that higher officials can state the troublesome youth

groups have been addressed than to achieve actual changes in behavior of the group and its individual

group members. The specific approaches have been evaluated as successful by the involved

stakeholders, but no structural measurements of effects have been done, the evaluations are mostly

based on feelings, subjective observations, informal feedback or only on the fact that the approach was

completed, not taking into account what the actual effects were.

4.3 Collaboration


As mentioned earlier the core partners of the integrated approach addressing troublesome youth groups

in The Hague consist of the police, the municipality and the Public Prosecution Service. The

municipality holds an overall directing role in the approach on all troublesome youth groups and the

Public Prosecution Service holds the directing role in the approach on criminal youth groups when it


47

comes to the part of criminal investigation and prosecution. The municipality and the police develop a

specific approach for each troublesome youth group inventoried with the Beke-shortlist, and the Public

Prosecution Service is involved when it comes to a criminal youth group. From this point the

municipality gets other organizations involved – if necessary – that could help with addressing the

troublesome youth group. The approaches are discussed in the ‘Veiligheidshuis’.

A great part of my informants see the added value in an integrated approach. They realize the problem

is too complex to be addressed by just one organization, they understand one organization can’t

develop a sustainable solution to such a complex problem, they embrace the multi-track approach and

they see the need for sharing information between involved stakeholders.

[..] it is really great that it is done and it certainly has an added value. In this approach it brought us a

lot further than where we were [..]. - Jeroen

When we started in the beginning the police and youth work didn’t work together, that was really not

done, and now it’s not a problem at all. - Gerda

The informants also seem to be happy with the coordination of the collaboration. Regular deliberations

at the ‘Veiligheidshuis’ are organized by the municipality and my informants also use informal contact

to share information.

I would like to point out the sharing of information, because this seems to be the key to success of an

integrated approach. The police can have certain information and knowledge on a troublesome youth

group, while youth work can have a lot of different information on that same group, because their

relationships with that particular group differ from each other. Despite this, the sharing of information

seems to be the pitfall. Some of the informants indicate that there are still organizations that don’t

want to share information due to privacy issues or because it will cause problems with their part of the

approach.

But then you sometimes notice with the Public Prosecution Service, yes it’s quite difficult when you

talk about sharing information, because a youth worker has a different relation with that youngster,

yeah you’re not going to put it all on the table, like, we are planning to arrest that and that youngster.

You can’t share that, you’re investigation will go… - Dorien

[..] and we never find out why such a boy has been rejected. And on the one hand that is a great good,

but when you speak of an integrated approach, you see that everything acts independently from each

other and it just keeps going. - Jeroen


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Information often is a key point. [..] Information is the key theme I think, and sharing information

quickly, informing each other. Yeah, no, that can always be improved. It can always be improved.

Specifically the aspect of unbidden. Now only things happen when people ask for it. - Matthijs

This last quote – “Now only things happen when people ask for it” – also shows that the preventive

track of the integrated approach isn’t working out as well. Information is only shared when people ask

for it, mostly done while a troublesome youth group or a group member is discussed in the

‘Veiligheidshuis’, and this is often too late because the youngster is in fact already a member of a

troublesome youth group. The preventive track is also supposed to focus on the little brothers and

sisters of members of troublesome youth groups. The intervention of the family coach has been

implemented to address this point, but it’s not working in full effect yet, as one of the informants state:

When you look at the members of the youth groups, they often have, there home situation is just not

good. And the parents are on welfare or there is domestic violence, those kinds of things. If you take

note of those things, those are often the first signals. So if you are in contact with a family where

domestic violence takes place or you hear about it, Meldpunt Kindermishandeling or Huiselijk Geweld,

and there are young children in that family, then you already have to be alert. You already have to

take action at that point. [..] And when you take note of it, when you catch such a perpetrator and at

the same time from what kind of system, family he comes from, where there are young children, you

need to intervene immediately. It happens, but there is always room for improvement. There are

family coaches and they work with family where things are going wrong. But that is really intensive,

costs money and takes a long time. You can stop by once a week, but that is pointless. - Matthijs

Another informant states that it is mostly a lot of talk and not a lot of action when it comes to

preventive interventions:

[..] that is what I’ve been hearing too now, start with the little brothers and what not. Then I’m

thinking, ‘yeah, we said that about twenty years ago already and that’s all nice, but you also need to

be able to really say something and really be able to do something. Because when that boy of nine

years old doesn’t go to school, or of eleven years old, than you need to take note of it and you need to

do an effective intervention. - Jeroen

Another big issue that the involved stakeholders struggle with is the fact that if so many different

organizations are involved, it proves to be hard to get every single organization looking in the same

direction. Different organizations define other problems and when they have to work together on one

approach this can cause difficulties in the collaboration. An often mentioned problem is the existence

of different interests between the police and youth work. The police are out to catch the bad guys and


49

will punish every little misstep they make, while youth work sees the good in people and will try to

help them without getting the police involved unless there is no other option.

It’s just that the view of the police is, and I’m exaggerating here, quite black and white. At youth care

or at welfare organizations you also want to see the good sides of people. The police only see the

negative, the criminal, the causing of nuisance. And that can collide with each other occasionally.

Eventually the goal is, the collaboration is there, we need to solve the problems together. But then you

do need to agree on the problem. And that can be improved. - Matthijs

But that is the funny part about it, when you bring in a certain youngster or something is going on with

him for example, then he will be discussed and then, the Public Prosecution Service looks at such a boy

in a certain way, the police, but the professional aid views it in a totally different way of course.

- Chris

But this is not the only problem that arises when working together with organizations that have

different interests. It is also about time and money. Especially the involved stakeholders that have a

totally different core business than addressing problematic youth problems can cause struggles in the

collaboration. They will agree on taking on certain tasks during the collective meetings, but once they

are back in their own organization other affairs become more important because these affairs generate

money or because the troublesome youth groups don’t directly affect them.

[..] they are all on a distance. They almost never talk to the residents, they are not threatened or

intimidated by the group, they are not beaten up. So for them it is at a distance, and then it becomes a

little bit more technical, and if on top of that the interests also differ, you know, with a housing

association that gives priority to their commercial interest and services culture or because… Yes, that

makes it difficult to work together. - Jeroen

Others choose money over effectiveness of an intervention:

[..] and also the fact that wrong choices are being made on the basis of agreements that have been

made to eventually make more money, because everyone also has to be paid. And what are the

agreements? The higher the stack of paper, the more money you get. We talked about this together

once. I would like to see: the less paper, the more money you get. It drives you completely crazy.

- Brian

We still do too much, and that’s an observation, that’s an opinion… I see all the partners doing all

kinds of interventions with those youth groups, of which I think beforehand, well, this just doesn’t

work. But they have already sold themselves, that is what they make money with, so the more

interventions I put into working, the better, because I earn money with it. - Matthijs


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Further, because different organizations are involved in one approach and everyone has their own

tasks and responsibilities to complete the approach, it is necessary that regular deliberations take place,

both on the development of the approach as well as the progress of the approach. The involved

stakeholders sometimes loose themselves in these deliberations with the consequence that actually

taking action takes too long. A lot happens in theory, a lot less happens in practice. While the

‘Veiligheidshuis’ is supposed to help the involved stakeholders with accomplishing something

together, it seems to slow down the process. The municipality has the directing role, but the

municipality also possesses a culture of deliberations which doesn’t help. A lot of my informants are

frustrated by this point and have a lot to say about it.

Look, the bottom line is, when you look at results, it is disappointing. [..] But you notice with a

‘Veiligheidshuis’ that – and that also has to do with a different blood type – to a ‘Veiligheidshuis’ it

sometimes is a goal that you get five partners around the table, of which I would think as a police man,

that is a means, because we want to pursue a goal and that you see that it is a goal on itself to the

other parties. And when there is an evaluation, then I am able to say for example, ‘yes, we were here

and we are still here’, but a ‘Veiligheidshuis’ or municipality says, ‘well, we were here, but we had

twelve consultations and the people have sat around the table and we made agreements, so we’ve

actually gotten to here’. Yes, that’s also true. I won’t deny that, but when you look at, what has

changed for those people, for that target group, it hasn’t turned out that well. - Jeroen

[..] you also see from the point of view of the Ministry, you have to account for this, account for that

and account for that and all plans have to be the same and that doesn’t work. That is a

‘Veiligheidshuis’ where someone should be able to come with his problem, must be helped, not

solved, but must be supported, where you can take a look together with all the expertise you have

when you are not able to figure it out locally. Like, have you thought about this and have you thought

about that, that’s as simple as it actually should be. Last year it was absolutely dramatic, so I hope

we’re back on the right track. But even there, we have it written on paper what we actually should be

doing, but maybe we just need to really do something for a change. - Gerda

[..] there is the ‘Veiligheidhuis’, you’ve heard about that, right? Well, that is in itself a good idea. But

that is so bureaucratic. - Chris

The Public Prosecution Service also recognized this problem. It takes the Public Prosecution Service a

lot longer than other organizations to take action, because they first need to build a good case before

they can prosecute someone. In the case of troublesome youth groups it can take even longer, because

they need to prove that crimes have been committed within a group and this can weigh down the


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severity of the committed crimes. The Public Prosecution Service also realized that they were often the

missing link during deliberations, because other affairs got priority.

We try to give it a more tangible form. But we often were the partner that was missed, when I came

here people told me all the time ‘you know, we often miss the Public Prosecution Service’. And that is

a shame, especially when it is nationally know, like, they have the directing role. - Dorien

Next to making sure that there is always a case officer present during deliberations at the

‘Veiligheidshuis’, the Public Prosecution Service developed a new tactic together with the police to

speed up the process of getting all evidence in a case together, called ZSM. ZSM is an abbreviation of

‘Zo Snel, Slim, Selectief, Simpel, Samen en Samenlevingsgericht Mogelijk’ and stands for: as soon as

possible, without any bureaucratic hassle; as smart as possible, by optimizing the process; as selective

as possible, by only handling cases that are supposed to be handled by criminal law; as simple as

possible, by minimal and simple administrative actions; as integrated as possible, by involving all

important partners; and as society focused as possible, by making sanction as valuable as possible for

perpetrator and victim. ZSM started in 2011 with a pilot, but is now at a point that the Public

Prosecution Service is permanently present at one of the police stations of The Hague together with

other important partners like ‘Reclassering Nederland’ and ‘Slachtofferhulp Nederland’ to ensure that

a prosecution decision is made a lot faster. Another underlying reasoning of ZSM is to quickly contact

the ‘Veiligheidshuis’ once they notice someone is a member of a criminal youth group and receive

more background and context information so they can use that information in the prosecution.

The problem of case officers that were too busy to regularly attend a meeting at the ‘Veiligheidshuis’

was sometimes solved by sending a staff member of the Public Prosecution Service. Although this was

done with the best intentions, it often didn’t work out as successful as expected because the staff

members didn’t know enough about a case and/or didn’t have enough competence or mandate to back

up their promises in practice. My informants encountered this problem more often and not only with

employees with the Public Prosecution Service.

But I constantly have the idea that, if we as the police bring our problem to the ‘Veiligheidshuis’ or to

the whatever, that there are people present that don’t have enough mandate or influence a little bit

too often, not only within that consultation, but also when they return to their own organization they

can’t get anything done. - Jeroen

But even more problems arise in the collaboration between involved stakeholders. The integrated

approach should help each involved stakeholder improve their executed interventions and it is truly

about working together. Too many organizations seem to have no clue what is really going on or don’t


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worry about the effects of an intervention, for them it’s enough the intervention is executed. They stick

with their own organizational thinking patterns, which can obstruct the work of other involved

stakeholders.

It’s just that I reason from the problem. I don’t reason from ‘we implemented an intervention and the

intervention is going well’. But what is it that is going well? ‘Yeah, he’s holding up to the agreements.

He’s arrives on time and leaves on time’. I say: ‘yes, but I’ve heard from the community police officer

that he’s walking on the streets at 2 a.m., apparently to break in somewhere’. ‘Well, that can’t be true,

because he’s acting according to the agreement with me’. Yes, that could also be possible, if he does

all the things he is supposed to do between 8 a.m. en 4 p.m., but if the police takes note on him

walking around the building at 2 a.m. that was broken into, and not once, but several times, then you

have to ask yourself if you’re doing the right things. - Matthijs

For example, you work for the parole office and a boy is assigned to you. And you have, I don’t know,

thirty. That’s what they call a workload or caseload, whatever. And then, okay, we’re going to call you,

you have to be at the office by then and then. And you arrive, perfectly on time of course, because you

don’t want the parole officer… And then, ‘yes, home by that time, don’t hang out with him, you’re

going to play soccer, this and that, do you agree’? ‘Yes, I agree’. And then, socially desirable answers.

And then he goes outside, hangs out with his old friends and everything goes down the drain. But

yeah, that parole officer, he only works from his office. He doesn’t know the neighbourhood, he

doesn’t know the family, he doesn’t know his background, he doesn’t know that boy. - Chris

There you go again with that blood type, there are no critical questions asked or no-one says, hold on

now. [..] Those boys have learned a long time ago what kind of socially desirable answers they have to

give at the ‘Centra Jeugd en Gezin’, at the judge, at the court, at a lawyer. - Jeroen

The last problem I would like to address is the involvement of citizens in the integrated approach as a

stakeholder. The integrated approach of The Hague accentuates the role of neighbourhood residents

within the collaboration and sees their involvement as decisive to solving the problem of troublesome

youth groups. While some interventions have been developed by neighbourhood residents, a great part

of them are hesitant to get involved according to some of my informants. The biggest problems caused

by troublesome youth groups take place in the deprived areas of The Hague and those residents have

enough problems of their own to be dealing with problems occurring on the streets of their

neighbourhood.

The best thing would be of course, that really has a chance of succeeding, if you get the whole

environment and neighbourhood motivated. But yes, that is absolutely difficult of course. Because


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they are people that think, as long as they don’t break into my house, then they will just go to the

neighbors. And often they don’t even call when there’s broke into their neighbors’ house.

- Chris

How do we get the citizens involved? Because then, that seems to be the most important and

successful partner. Because you can run into an area as an organization, as government, do your thing

and run away again, but when the citizens don’t take over, it falls apart so fast again. So those are

discoveries, insights, methods, that keep getting developed in better ways. It is a difficult one by the

way, because how do you say to the citizens, ‘well citizens, you have to something as well’? While they

are being threatened from every side and yes, that is difficult. - Matthijs

At this point we can conclude that the involved stakeholders see the added value of an integrated

approach, but the integrated approach looks better in theory than in practice. A variety of problems

arise when so many organizations – all with their own organizational culture and interests – have to

work together. It proves to be difficult to get every organization looking in the same direction,

defining the problem in the same way and coming to agreement on what the best way is to find a

solution.

4.3.2 Flashback

The employees of HALT are both surprisingly positive about the collaboration with other involved

stakeholders of the Flashback-approach compared to the informants that are involved in the general

integrated approach. They both indicate to be in close contact with the police and to attend various

meetings regularly with other involved stakeholders and are happy with this contact. They do indicate

that the contact with organizations that take over the troublesome youth group after the group

completed the Flashback-approach is limited. Linda recognized this as a point for improvement and

indicated that it has been discussed within HALT:

Of course we’ve talked about it more often, we’ve also had quite a lot of youngsters we have referred

to professional aid and yes, we have talked about it, like, we actually should do a check-up call after

three months for example or, you know, that you indeed have a sort of check-up, like, has the transfer

gone okay, have they found their way to professional aid or hasn’t anything been done with it?

- Linda

Yvonne didn’t address this limited contact as a problem, which probably has to do with the fact that,

according to the HALT-employees, the approach is completed after they round up the three meetings

and have referred the troublesome youth group to another organization. The group is someone else’s

responsibility when they have completed the Flashback-approach and HALT isn’t affected by the


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group after that. This is what the informants of the general integrated approach already mentioned:

organizations that stick to their own tasks, responsibilities and organizational thinking patterns. If

HALT maintained more intensive contact during and after the completion of the Flashback-approach

it would get a better picture of how the troublesome youth group is really doing – in real life and not

only how the group behaves during the hours they meet – and the effects of the Flashback-approach

could probably be brought into sharper focus, which, on their turn, can aid other organizations in their

interventions.

It can be concluded that the two informants have experienced the collaboration as positive. HALT

implements a very specific, short-term approach and the contact and collaboration with other

organizations is very limited, also because the approach only has been executed three times until now.

While the informants do not recognize any problems in the collaboration, it could be possible the

approach doesn’t have the successful effects they think it has, because HALT doesn’t maintain

intensive contact with other partners during and after completion of the approach on the behavior of

the troublesome youth group in real life, instead of only during the meetings.

4.3.3 Reaching out

The two informants working in the outreaching field differ on how they have experienced the

collaboration with other involved stakeholders. They are both positive about the collaboration, but

Victor also sees some weaknesses in the collaboration. James doesn’t mention anything negative about

the collaboration.

Victor and James both emphasize the importance of working together with other organizations to find

a solution to the problem. They truly believe in the integrated approach and recognize that one

organization can’t find a sustainable solution by itself.

As a welfare organization, it is just a lot of investing in relations with police, residents, just really invest

in those relations. And also try not to make it just the problem of the police or of a welfare

organization. So, also name the role of what you could possibly do. Also be able to vulnerable, like, ‘we

need you’. - James

Well, you have to look at it, like, there are reciprocal agreements, which makes us both able to do our

work a little bit better. And I think that is where the strength can be found. There is only one way to

solve this problem and that is collaboration. And that means working together with all the parties. And

make sure that everyone has the same goal. - Victor


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It is especially surprising to see that they both value their collaboration with the police and they both

indicate that the collaboration with the police is going very well. They speak on a regular basis with

the police, they have certain agreements with each other on how to act around troublesome youth

groups when both partners are present and they share information with each other up to a certain point.

This is contrary to what was said earlier about the collaboration between police and youth work, two

organizations with interests so far apart from each other that it would cause problems in the

collaboration. The work of Victor and James show that the integrated approach has brought them

closer together and improvement has been made in the collaboration with the police, but Victor

realizes that it is the exception rather than the rule and that there is still a long way to go.

The beginning is there. But it is, and will be, always difficult because professional aid and the police,

they don’t mix, in general. Because a lot of professional aid workers think, like, ‘yeah, you don’t work

together with the police, because their intention is to track down the boys and arrest them and my

intention is to help those boys. So that collides with each other. While I think, it doesn’t have to

collide, you just need to make clear, who does what and how do we address the problem? If that

communication exists you can work together with the police. But that is something that a lot of

professional aid workers still don’t really understand. - Victor

Victor also recognizes the problem of organizations that only execute their own interventions, but in

the same time don’t really have an image what happens with the troublesome youth group in real life

and if the interventions have an effect on the troublesome youth group or individual group members.

Other informants saw this as an obstruction to their own work, but Victor sees this as a problem that is

solved by the integrated approach, because Victor is out on the street and can inform other

organizations about the behavior of the group or individual group members in real life.

And of course, the other way around, if we see that one of those youngsters still causes trouble on the

street and keeps doing bad this, we will pass that on to that attending, because with that attending

they keep up a good appearance, like, ‘no, criminal activities? No, me? No, i quit that live a long time

ago’! Yeah, I’ve heard that one so many times and at the same time I see him robbing an old lady on

the street, so to speak. - Victor

James and Victor also differ in opinion on how they have experienced the collaboration with

neighbourhood residents. They both understand that neighbourhood residents are an important partner

in the approach addressing troublesome youth groups, but Victor emphasizes the neighbourhood

residents are not ready yet to take on the task, while James has found the collaboration with

neighbourhood residents positive.


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Well, I started this year with taking neighbourhood residents to the hangout-spots. And that works

indeed in a preventive way. And the residents often do see, ‘well, I look at it in a completely different

light, I now know what youth work does’. I started at the end of last year with organizing a sort of work

for the residents, like, address the youngsters when they sit on your porch, for example. [..] There

were twenty people at that time, yes. We did role-playing games and it also has, yes, it worked out

really well. - James

And people are not concerned with other things. [..] Everyone here is busy making ends meet and

assuring they still have something to eat this month. So everything that goes on outside, you know,

far-flung events, and that, yeah, doesn’t really concern me, because I’m already struggling within my

own four walls. - Victor

From the information provided by the two informants working in the field of outreaching we can

conclude that the informants working in the outreaching field are in general positive about the

collaboration with other involved stakeholders. They are happy to be working together with other

organizations in the approach addressing troublesome youth groups and both agree on the fact that it is

necessary to work in an integrated manner to be able to find a sustainable solution for the problem.

They both have made clear agreements with their partners which help them in making the

collaboration work out successfully. Nevertheless, Victor does notice some of the problems that were

also mentioned earlier by informants working on the general integrated approach, like the struggles

that occur in the involvement of neighbourhood residents and the conflicting interests of youth work

and the police that can obstruct the collaboration.

4.3.4 Conclusion

All of the informants related to the general integrated approach see the importance of working together

with other organizations in the approach addressing troublesome youth groups, but they also encounter

a variety of problems in the collaboration. Every organization has its own interests, its own methods of

working and its own way of defining the problem, which makes it difficult to get every organization

looking in the same direction and coming to a sustainable solution to the problem.

The informants of the specific approaches discussed in the research are a lot more positive

about the collaboration with other organizations. The HALT-employees haven’t encountered any

problems in the collaboration, but this also has to be put in perspective because the Flashback-

approach only has been executed three times. Next to that, the Flashback-approach is a very specific,

short-termed approach with a clear beginning and ending, which causes HALT to keep the contact

with other organizations limited and doesn’t encourage the employees to think outside of their

organizational box. The outreaching informants are also content with the collaboration with other

organizations and even address the fact that, in their particular cases, the collaboration with the police


57

is working out very well. The streetcoach does encounter some problems in collaboration with

neighbourhood residents and recognizes the relationship between the police and youth work/care is not

optimal in every situation.


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5. AN EXAMPLE: THE MAMMOTH-APPROACH

The ‘Mammoet’-approach or Mammoth-approach is an approach addressing troublesome youth

groups that has been implemented in the neighbourhood called ‘Schilderswijk’, one of The Hague’s

deprived areas, with a focus on the ‘Delftselaan’ and the ‘Rozenburgstraat’. The Mammoet-approach

was implemented during the period of 2010-2011 by the police station ‘De Heemstraat’ and the

department Public Order and Safety of the municipality of The Hague. After rounding up the approach

it has been labeled as very successful by different actors in the field and is seen as the pioneer in all

approaches addressing troublesome youth groups in The Hague. I have chosen to devote a separate

chapter to the Mammoth-approach, because it gives me the possibility to provide a more detailed

account on the implementation, execution and evaluation of the approach. The story of the Mammoth-

approach can serve as an example to future approaches, describing its do’s and don’ts. All the

information used in this chapter is gathered from interviews with employees of the police and the

municipality and the report Dutch newspaper Trouw did on the Mammoth-approach.

The Mammoth-approach didn’t just arise out of nowhere. It had a preparatory process of about ten

years of the police keeping track of the groups, their members and the problems they caused within the

neighbourhood. The municipality had a preparatory process of about one and a half years of mapping

the problems, investigating what was needed in the neighbourhood and which organizations had to be

involved. The Mammoth-approach was focused on two troublesome youth groups that terrorized the

neighbourhood. The groups are named after the streets where they mainly got together and hung out.

The ‘Delftselaan’-group consisted of solely Moroccan members and the ‘Rozenburgstraat’-group

consisted of Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese members; the members are between the ages of

fourteen and twenty-nine. The groups consisted of only boys and a great part of them dealt with

psychiatric disorders, some had mild intellectual disabilities or were moderately retarded, but were

very streetwise and physically strong. They caused nuisance and committed crimes: they robbed, stole

and committed burglaries. They didn’t commit crimes, for example, for kicks or because they were

going through puberty, they made a conscious decision to lead a criminal life and committed crimes

purely for the money they made with it.

The groups had the neighbourhood in their grip, especially the Delftselaan-group which is the

more criminal one and was known as one of the most criminal youth groups of The Hague. They

called themselves DSL, an abbreviation for Delftselaan. They knew everyone that lived in or came

through their territory and knew everything about them: the residents and where they lived, what cars

they owned, who their children were, shop-owners, police officers, youngsters. All this knowledge

gave them control over the neighbourhood and made everyone around them fear the group. According

to a report by the Dutch newspaper Trouw on the Mammoth-approach other people called the DSL-

members hyena’s, predators, opportunists and disrespectful, relentless and unconscionable (Ramesar,


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2011). People were intimidated by the group and were afraid to call the police. Michiel describes a

typical day in the Schilderswijk at that time:

[..] at the Delftselaan, within that Mammoth-area, at a typical day, around noon, there would be

twenty to forty Moroccan boys, in the ages between eighteen and thirty years old. That would be

used, that public space was just used by them. And that was a coming and going, very dynamic, of cars

and then three would come in and three others would leave. Neighbourhood residents look at that,

like, yes, that is nuisance. - Michiel

Negative role models were a big part of the problem. Because the groups were located in a deprived

area they encountered problems like low levels of education, school drop-outs, poverty and people

dependent on welfare. Group members often were children of mothers without a job, dependent on

welfare, and fathers that had criminal records. They would have brothers, nephews, uncles and friends

who were part of the criminal circuit and the group members, on their turn, acted as negative role

models to their younger brothers, nephews and other children from the neighbourhood.

According to Michiel the problems caused by the two troublesome youth groups came to a point that

the neighbourhood residents had enough of it and they stated that the police had to do something

immediately or else they wouldn’t be welcome in the neighbourhood anymore and the residents would

find their own solution to the problem. That solution would come down to the residents finding an

organization – like a criminal organization – that would protect the neighbourhood. Trouw gives the

same example of worries among neighborhood residents. According to their report a resident meeting

in 2009 was the motive to start with the Mammoth-approach. The Hague’s mayor Van Aartsen was

present during this meeting and the neighborhood residents clearly expressed their worries about the

nuisance, the vandalism, the intimidations and the terrifying situations they found themselves in

(Ramesar, 2011). When this alarming signal was clearly heard by the mayor and the police, they

started off with the Mammoth-approach. The main goal of the Mammoth-approach was to improve the

overall quality of life in the neighbourhood in a sustainable manner; giving back the neighbourhood to

the neighbourhood residents, taking away the control of the neighbourhood from the Delftselaan-

group and Rozenburgstraat-group and improving the willingness of neighbourhood residents to report

crimes and nuisance to the police. This is also where the name ‘Mammoth’ comes from, the approach

was supposed to leave a huge, permanent footprint in the neighbourhood. The idea of the Mammoth-

approach was to achieve this goal by permanently taking away the two groups from the

neighbourhood by arresting and sentencing the group members, which would have the effect of

dissolving the groups, and assuring they wouldn’t be able to form a group again and return to the

neighbourhood. Assuring the groups wouldn’t be able to return to the neighbourhood and cause the

same problems the groups had caused before was done by the municipality, which got different


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organizations involved to improve the quality of the neighbourhood and the trust of the neighbourhood

residents in the neighbourhood. The Mammoth-approach is a clear example of an integrated approach;

different partners from various corners of the field working together to tackle a problem.

Different interventions by various partners were executed. Even before arrests were done by

the police, the municipality had already started with implementing interventions in the neighborhood.

The gardens at the ‘s Gravenzandelaan and the Delftselaan were addressed, an idea of one of the

members of the municipal council, with the goal of improving the enjoyment and the liveability of the

neighborhood. The municipality also got the housing corporation involved to address the backyards of

residents. Meanwhile, the police held a close watch on the group members. From 2010, the police

gathered information on the groups and their members by staking out in the neighborhood, talking to

neighborhood residents, shop owners and schools and taking pictures to build up cases against every

group member. Eventually, sixty group members of both the Delftselaan-group and the

Rozenburgstraat-group were arrested and sentenced in the period of September-October 2011. All

group members were discussed during deliberations at the ‘Veiligheidshuis’, making it possible to

provide detailed stories on the crimes they had committed and the effects it had on the neighborhood

and its residents, resulting in higher sentences. Most of them were sentenced for one or two years and

the larger part has served their sentence by now. The moment the group members were sent to jail was

the starting signal for the greater part of the interventions executed within the neighborhood, but

interventions involving the return of the group members into society were also important. While the

group members were still in jail they attended behavioral trainings. The municipality designed

programs for them to be executed when they got out of jail, assuring the group members wouldn’t

form a group again and wouldn’t repeat offences. Each group member got a program that was

designed specifically for him, which could vary from rehabilitation supervision, electronic bracelets,

periodical drug tests, help with finding a useful way of spending their days like education or work,

help with finding housing and other interventions assuring they wouldn’t repeat offences that were not

specified by my informants. The foundation Trix was also involved. The involvement of the

foundation is a more non-traditional method of ensuring the former group members got to work. They

restore ships and build boats in Scheveningen, while working under a tight regime with a consistent

daily routine. The interventions executed within the neighborhood entailed numerous things. A

liveability consultation was set up under the direction of the city block Centre. The housing

cooperation Haag Wonen improved the porches at the Delftselaan. Youth workers worked together

with youngsters to build so-called SocialSofa’s, concrete benches that are decorated with mosaic, that

are meant to bring neighborhood residents closer together. The municipality, together with the

Donkere Dagen-offensive, provided packages to neighborhood residents preventing burglaries. The

municipality also made investments in the cleaning of the streets. Sports were also used as preventive

interventions; a soccer cage was placed, street sports were organized, youngsters got sports coaching.

Flexible camera supervision and a neighborhood intervention team were implemented to prevent


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youngsters from forming new troublesome youth groups. Recently a social broker has been appointed

to the neighborhood to help the residents improve the liveability of the neighborhood.

Every partner involved in the above mentioned interventions shared their information with other

partners through the consultations at the ‘Veiligheidshuis’ to ensure everyone was up to date on the

status of the problem and to ensure everyone could – and would – perform their task at best. The three

parties that actually take place at the table of the ‘Veiligheidshuis’ are the municipality, the police and

the Public Prosecution Service. The representatives of these organizations gather their information

from subordinates, colleagues and other parties they work together with. These three parties form the

directional group and decide what should be done by them and other involved stakeholders.

My respondents are overall very positive about the collaboration with other stakeholders

within the Mammoth-approach. Gerda describes the collaboration as follows:

I’m convinced that, really, and I’m not afraid to say it out loud and I do it with love, that we really have

a good approach in The Hague. That we work in an integrated way, that we have a triangle of parties

that understands it, supports is and works together, that we have found each other in the

neighborhoods. [..] You see it everywhere, you see it in the Schilderswijk, you see it in a part of

Hoefkade, Transvaal, Spoorwijk, Waldeck, doesn’t matter. Where we are present, that is where it

works. That is where we make it happen. - Gerda

The respondents do recognize it took some time to get every stakeholder looking in the same direction

and to get them to think outside of their comfort zone. Michiel gives the example of working together

with the BRR [Boven-regionale recherche]. Within this collaboration both parties had to find their

way in working with different kinds of views on gathering information:

You have to be open-minded about each other’s information, but also about each other’s insights and,

for example, about analyses from those systems. [..] So, after a while, a certain amount of trust

develops, you know. And they weren’t afraid anymore to let to systems go a little bit and, indeed, trust

the information gathered on the streets. - Michiel

Gerda ascribes a very important role to her department at the municipality – Public Order and Safety –

as one of the success factors of the collaboration. Gerda explains the employees of the Public Order

and Safety department understand both the side of the police and the Public Prosecution Service as

well as the social and well being side of the story, which makes the collaboration and execution of

interventions a lot easier.


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We just have those overall interests, the public order and safety, that is what it is about. And that is

not only blue [police] or just preventive, it is about that oil that you mix in. To do that, I think, we have

the right people at the right places. - Gerda

While Gerda is very positive about the role of her department at the municipality within the

Mammoth-approach, Michiel is less positive about the role of the municipality, which comes back to

the point that people stay within their comfort zone. Michiel addresses the issue that the municipality

works from behind a desk and has no idea what is going on outside, because they never really go

outside. According to Michiel, the municipality writes plans and thinks of interventions about things

they have no real knowledge of and lets other parties do the work, not knowing if it will work.

Yes, if you really want to do something in the neighborhood, you can write plans for it and think of all

kinds of great thing and arrange network meetings, but who is the one that really goes out on the

streets? - Michiel

The neighborhood residents are seen as an important partner within the collaboration. The three

leading parties in this approach see the neighborhood residents as the ones that eventually are

responsible for giving back the neighborhood to themselves. They have tried to involve the

neighborhood residents as much as possible and tried to stimulate and motivate them to think of and

execute different interventions. This has led to consultations between the residents and the

municipality on what they thought had to change within the neighborhood, Buurt Preventie Teams,

convincing them to report crimes to the police and a social broker who will help them improve the

neighborhood liveability. But the involvement of the neighborhood residents is not at the level the

municipality would like to see it yet. After years and years of living in fear the residents are still

hesitant to go out and stand up for themselves.

While the Mammoth-approach is widely seen as a successful integrated approach addressing

troublesome youth groups, the lack of involvement of neighborhood residents is a first sign it isn’t as

perfect as thought to be. The Mammoth-approach received its fame from successfully combining

repressive and preventive measures by dissolving the troublesome youth groups and implementing

several interventions to improve the liveability of the neighborhood. It seems the latter hasn’t worked

out as well yet as it is presented to the public. Michiel still sees the neighborhood as a deprived area

and doesn’t believe that people from organizations – that do not actually live in the neighborhood –

can get anything done. He is pretty radical in stating that things are never going to change.

No, okay, so then you’ll just have to conclude that it’s never going to happen. And all the other things,

that’s useless. So, you’ll have to quit that as well. If you don’t do that, if you can’t do that, or if you


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don’t want that, then you shouldn’t worry about the rest. Then you just have to let it go and things will

go as they go. - Michiel

Christine and Gerda are less radical in their statements, but also recognize the fact that the liveability

isn’t at the level it should be. Christine rather thinks it will cost a few years to see changes in the

neighborhood, because it has taken the neighborhood a lot of years to come at such a low level of

liveability.

You say: “Did it work out well”? Well, that’s always within the context of the neighborhood you’re

working in. The social cohesion and neighborhood participation isn’t at the level that we would like.

For example, if you take a look at other neighborhoods in The Hague, yeah, there you have really big

neighborhood prevention teams or street representatives. Yes, we are not there yet.

- Christine

It’s strange the Mammoth-approach is already labeled as successful while one of the goals – giving

back the neighborhood to the residents by improving the liveability of the neighborhood – hasn’t been

achieved yet and the approach has already been rounded up. You would think that the evaluation of

the Mammoth-approach would give more explanation, but surprisingly no final evaluation has been

done. The involved stakeholders did evaluate the executed interventions and their effects during the

approach, but a final evaluation wasn’t found necessary by the employees of the municipality.

According to them, writing up a final evaluation takes up too much time and once a report has finally

been written several other things have happened in the meanwhile. Letting an external research centre

evaluate the approach also wasn’t something they were leaping at:

But we don’t have extensive reports. That is not something we’re leaping at. Yes, we’ve had research

centers come by in the past, but that’s also something I’m not leaping at, because you always do

everything wrong. So, that’s a warning to you.

- Gerda

Christine explains that the Mammoth-approach has quietly gone over into the Rizoma-approach and

that a final evaluation of the interventions directed to specific individuals has been done. She also

explains the municipality hasn’t stopped with their interventions to improve the liveability in the

neighborhood, but they aren’t as intensive and prioritized as during the Mammoth-approach.


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6. CONCLUDING REMARKS

6.1 Conclusion

The goal of this research was to gain insight in the approaches that The Hague has implemented to

address troublesome youth groups, which stakeholders are involved in these approaches and how they

have experienced their collaboration with other stakeholders. Four different implemented approaches

have been studied and have resulted in information about the reasoning to implement these

approaches, their evaluation and the ways my informants have experienced the collaboration with

other partners of the integrated approaches.

Interviews with fifteen informants have resulted in four approaches addressing troublesome youth

groups: the general integrated approach, the Flashback-approach, ‘reaching out’ work and the

Mammoth-approach. Within all approaches the police, municipality and the Public Prosecution

Service are the core stakeholders. They are responsible for getting other partners involved who could

contribute to addressing the troublesome youth groups. The informants within this research worked

together with youth care, the ‘Centra Jeugd en Gezin’, the ‘Jeugd Interventie Team’, the ‘Jeugd

Preventie Team’, residents and retailers of the neighbourhood and parents of group members.

From the conversations with my informants it hasn’t really become clear why these four

approaches have been chosen to be implemented. The decision to choose an approach seems to be

based simply on deliberations on what the organizations thought was necessary, but evidence-based

knowledge about the effectiveness of an approach seems to be lacking. The popularity of working in

an integrated manner, implementing social interventions and experimenting with interventions also

seems to be a driving force.

While it was unclear whether the approaches would have any effect, all approaches have been

evaluated as successful. My informants seem to disagree with these results. The specific approaches

have been evaluated as successful by the involved stakeholders, but no structural measurements of

effects have been done, the evaluations are mostly based on feelings, subjective observations, informal

feedback or are only based on the fact that the approach was completed, not taking into account what

the actual effects were.

The collaboration with other involved stakeholders has been experienced both positive and

negative by my informants. They recognize the relevance of working together with other partners and

acknowledge they have had more success together than they would have working on their own, but

this collaboration doesn’t come without struggle. Especially the informants that talked about the

general integrated approach encountered problems in their collaboration with other partners. Differing

organizational cultures, organizational views and organizational priorities cause stakeholders to clash

and obstruct them in coming to a sustainable solution to the problem. Struggles in activating


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neighborhood residents in the collaboration, whom are seen as one of the most important partners in

sustainably addressing troublesome youth groups, are widely recognized by my informants.

6.2 Discussion

The ways in which the troublesome youth groups are addressed in The Hague comply with literature

on local security networks. The informants recognize that troublesome youth groups are highly

complex problems – wicked problems – which should be addressed by various partners to be able to

tackle the different aspects, characteristics, causes and effects and come to a sustainable solution to the

problem. Organizations responsible for preventive, repressive and after care measures are involved. As

my informants weren’t able to provide comprehensive reasoning on why the integrated manner was

used in addressing troublesome youth groups it seems The Hague follows the trend of using popular

concepts like ‘integrality’ within their policies, without any grounded reasoning. The same goes for

the specific approaches; the reasoning to implement the chosen interventions was mainly based on

deliberations and thoughts of employees, without any basis of scientific evidence. The lack of

scientific evidence makes it hard to determine if an approach has had any effect and if so, which

intervention has had which result. This is also true for the approaches implemented in The Hague.

Results of implemented approaches are vague and if there were any clear results it was unclear which

intervention triggered that effect, because so many interventions are put into working at the same time

and because the groups and the circumstances they operate in are constantly changing. The most

quoted case is that of the girlfriend. A youngster is a member of a troublesome youth group, goes

through youth care trajectories, is sentenced to jail time, goes through a rehabilitation trajectory, then

turns 21 and suddenly stops his involvement with the group and the accompanying crimes. But he also

started dating a girl that didn’t like his criminal work. The question arises what has had effect, the

interventions that have been implemented or his girlfriend, it is simply impossible to measure. Lacking

evidence-based reasoning and a scientific measurement of effects makes it impossible to implement

evidence-based policies, something The Hague does state to be doing in their security plan. Even

when organizations experiment with new approaches or interventions it is absolutely necessary they

are thoroughly evaluated. The Mammoth-approach, the approach that has already been rounded up and

labeled as successful, hasn’t been evaluated; the general integrated approach and Flashback-approach

have been evaluated, but those evaluations are directed to the fact if the approach has been executed,

not if the approach had any actual effect; and the ‘reaching out’ approach has been evaluated on the

basis of feelings and thoughts, not on scientific measurements. Nonetheless, all approaches are labeled

as successful. This can be explained by the frames the involved stakeholders use. It is important to the

Mayor of The Hague to frame his approaches in such a way it comes across as successful to the public,

because he can’t afford to lose the faith of his citizens, especially with a topic that has gotten so much

attention in recent years. The labeling of the specific approaches as successful can also be explained

by framing. These organizations only look at their own work and what interventions they have


66

executed. If they have executed their tasks, in their eyes, they have been successful. They are not

confronted with problems that other people or organizations encounter with the same troublesome

youth groups. The problem is they only see their own frame and forget about the collective frame.

This also goes for the Mammoth-approach. The police have framed the Mammoth-approach as

successful, because they have arrested the group members, which is their goal as an organization. But

the municipality hasn’t been successful yet in their task of giving back the neighborhood to the

residents by improving the liveability of the neighborhood, this is still an ongoing process. Framing

this problem as something the neighborhood residents are responsible for, and framing it as something

that just can’t be solved within such a short amount of time, excuses the municipality from failing their

interventions.

These differing frames between organizations also cause problems with the collaboration

between involved stakeholders. Problems that have shown up in earlier scientific research on local

security networks are also present in The Hague’s local security network. My informants have run into

problems within their collaboration with other involved stakeholders like, unclear responsibilities and

running from responsibilities, not thinking outside of the organizational box, delays and getting all

involved stakeholders together at the same time. While a local security network is supposed to have a

positive effect on the dissemination of information, my informants stated that this very point

obstructed them in the execution of their intervention, because other involved partners deliberately

withhold information within the context of privacy. These problems spring from different problem

perceptions and dissimilar frames of reference and obstruct a smooth flow of collaboration. All

involved stakeholders have differing priorities. The most obvious example is that of the police versus

‘reaching out’ workers: the police are out to arrest troublemakers while youth work and streetcoaches

see the good in these group members and try to help them get back on the right track without

repressive measures. Another important example from this research is the hesitance of neighborhood

residents to get involved, as seen with the Mammoth-approach. They are reluctant to do something

about the situation because they are scared and they have to deal with their own problems as well.

Money is also a big aspect of this difficult pace in collaboration. Organizations deal with strict budgets

and commercial organizations rather spend their time on tasks that bring in profits, which delays other

involved stakeholders with moving forward in their tasks, since everyone depends on each other.

Striking was the fact that the members of troublesome youth groups are not recognized as a

stakeholder and are therefore not involved in the development and evaluation of approaches, while this

particular stakeholder has very specific knowledge on the effectiveness of an approach which no other

stakeholder has. As we have seen, the sharing of information on (members of) troublesome youth

groups is not optimal within the local security network. The youngsters are the ones that hold all

information and if they are willing to share this information, because they see the relevance in sharing

certain information, a great deal of this specific problem in the collaboration is easily addressed. Next

to that, the members of the troublesome youth groups undergoing the interventions and approaches are


67

the ones that can easily tell if an intervention/approach has had any effect, be it positive or negative.

Letting them share their experiences can help improve interventions, discard interventions or develop

new interventions. Of course, some of them will reject any form of collaboration, because they do not

want to be helped, but a great deal of the youngsters is open to help to get them back on the right path,

as we can conclude from the stories of several informants within this research. To be successful in

addressing troublesome youth groups means involving all stakeholders, including the members of


The integrated approach is supposed to motivate involved stakeholders to work outside their comfort

zone and truly work together with their partners, but this research has shown The Hague isn’t at that

point yet. The collaboration is still obstructed in too many ways, because organizations haven’t been

able to fully develop a collective action frame yet. The Hague also has a long way to go when it comes

to implementing and evaluating approaches and interventions based on scientific evidence.

6.3 Recommendations for future research

This research has made the ways that The Hague deals with their troublesome youth groups more

insightful and the results can help the involved stakeholders improve their approaches as well as other

organizations that are at the starting point of addressing troublesome youth groups. Further, this

research contributes to the existing literature on local security networks and framing by providing an

example from the real world linked to these theories.

Nevertheless, this research also has its limitations. Due to time restrictions a limited amount of

informants have been interviewed which resulted in limited information on implemented approaches.

Further research on this topic should take the time to expand the number of informants to gain better

insight in the variety of approaches that are implemented in The Hague, the variety of stakeholders

that are involved in this topic, and to collect and discuss more details about the approaches and the

collaboration between the involved stakeholders. With this, two other categories of informants should

be included: neighborhood residents, whom are the actual victims of the discussed problem, and

members of troublesome youth groups, whom are the perpetrators. These informants are not included

in this research due to the time restrictions, which obstructed me in gaining access to these very

important informants.

I would also like to suggest conducting more participatory observations, to get a better sense

of what goes on in the workplace and in the neighborhood, and to be able to judge the situation the

involved stakeholders find themselves in with your own eyes.

Last, further research on this topic should spend more time in finding and interviewing

informants that were involved in the policy making processes, because I expect these persons to

probably be able to provide more information on the reasoning why certain approaches are chosen to

be implemented.


68

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master thesis: j.a. de rooy (2013)

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