HOLLAND'S VIOLENT BLACK SHEEP

Over the past decade, groups of immigrant youths have been causing growing problems in Holland's major cities. The young people come mainly from Morocco, but also from Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles. They often hang out in squares in the evening and commit petty and violent crime.

Jan Dirk de Jong, a researcher at the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies at the University of Amsterdam, has spent the past seven years studying these youths and has just finished his doctoral thesis on the issue.

These troublesome youths, as they're known, are three to four times more likely than Dutch youths to get in trouble with the police. Dutch anthropologists and criminologists have offered a wide variety of explanations as to why they have more problems than other youths. Among the reasons they give is the fact that these immigrant youths are male and come from disadvantaged families.
read more (radionetherlands.nl)

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October 29, 2007