Since the late 1990s criminality among ethnic minorities or 'allochtonen' has been at the centre of the public debate in the Netherlands. A majority of native Dutch people feel the Netherlands have become an unsafer place, and link this with the presence of immigrant youth on the streets. Journalists, politicians and researchers routinely confirm each other's convictions about the seriousness of this problem.

By contrast, crime committed by native Dutch (autochtonen) hardly gets any attention at all. Unjustly so, because native Dutch people commit crimes too – it's just that this doesn't quite fit the self-image of native Dutch people, or the negative view they have of Muslims and ethnic minorities in general. The statistics, however, don't lie: of the 212,000 suspects arrested in 2005 63 percent was native Dutch. (Non-Western immigrants account for 11 percent of the Dutch population.)

'Allochtoon' The debat about ethnic minorities and immigration in the Netherlands centres around the word 'allochtoon'. The term literally means 'from another country' in Greek. In the Netherlands and in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, it is used to refer to immigrants and their descendants. It was introduced in 1971 as a euphemism for immigrant. Technically a person is an allochtoon if one of his or her parents was born abroad. In political and public debates, however, the word is used to refer to those who are of non-Western ethnicity, especially Moroccan, Turkish, Surinames or from the Dutch Antilles. According to the 2009 figures from the Dutch statistics bureau CBS, there are 1,809,310 non-Western 'allochtonen' living in the Netherlands, 1,478,396 Western 'allochtonen' and 13,198,081 'autochtonen' (native Dutch). The word allochtoon is used both as a pejorative and with pride by those whom it refers to.

An as yet unpublished study by Utrecht University confirms that native Dutch crime is a serious problem. Young native Dutch delinquents in Utrecht are more likely to be repeat offenders than those of ethnic minorities in the city.

Another study by the urban research institute Nicis, Moroccan juvenile delinquents: a class apart?, compared Moroccan-Dutch and native Dutch juvenile delinquents between the ages of 13 and 18. Dutch delinquents scored much higher on violent crime, sex crimes and arson.

Other sources too suggest that native Dutch are responsible for a major part of violent crime. The rise in violent crime around Amsterdam's entertainment area's Leidseplein and Rembrandtplein in the past decade is largely the work of native Dutch people, the research institute COT found, as is violence against police officers in nightlife areas, according to a study by the Free University Amsterdam.

The police academy did its own research into violent crime during new year's eve 2007-2008, when 46 million euros worth of damage was done to cars, schools, homes and government property. It found that 78 percent of the perpetrators were native Dutch. It also found that more government property was damaged in villages in the Dutch 'Bible Belt' than anywhere else. Research by a local paper, Reformatorisch Dagblad, confirmed the police academy's findings.

Last summer's beach party at Hoek van Holland was another tragic low of native Dutch violence. (One person was killed when police opened fire on the unruly crowd.) Interestingly, the first reports about the Hoek van Holland incident mistakingly said ethnic minorities were involved. A recent example of native Dutch violence is the killing of 14-year-old Dirk Post in Urk, in which the three suspects are all teenagers from the same village.

It is noteworthy that in news reports the ethnic background of violent offenders is almost never mentioned if they are native Dutch. Neither is 'Dutch culture' blamed to explain the reasons for the violence, as is often done in the case of young Moroccan or Antillean offenders. An exception as the report by NRC Handelsblad about the Hoek van Holland incident, which exposed a culture of alcohol, drugs, violence, football, dance parties and complete abandon.

The truth is there is much we don't know about the world of violent native Dutch youngsters, who will beat someone to within an inch of their life "just for kicks". Researchers in the 1990s have referred to it as 'recreational violence'.

The last few years we have been obsessed with young criminals from the Moroccan and Antillean communities. It is high time to broaden our perspective. The criminal behaviour of native Dutch deserves the attention of politicians, journalists, policy makers and researchers. It might lead to a more qualified picture of our society, one in which there is more room for self-criticism and less for complacency.