Five murder and manslaughter victims a week

In 2001, 265 people in the Netherlands were victims of murder or manslaughter. This is slightly more than the average in the period 1997-2001. Seven out of ten of the victims were men, and relatively many of them were killed in the weekend.

Relatively many young men

An average 232 people a year fell victim to murder or manslaughter in the Netherlands in the period 1997-2001. Half of these victims were between the ages of 20 and 40, and seven out of ten were men. The largest number of victims are in the category of men aged 25-30 years.

Victims of murder and manslaughter by age, 1997-2001

Weekends claim many victims

Forty-five percent of all murders were committed in the weekend. For men between the ages of 20 and 30 this is even 60 percent. Men are one and a half times as likely to be killed in the weekend than in the rest of the week. For men aged 20 to 30 this risk is even two and a half times as high. For female victims there is hardly and difference between weekends and weekdays.

Most men shot or stabbed

Just over four out over ten male victims are killed by firearms. Three out of ten are stabbed to deaths. Fewer men are beaten or kicked to death (7 percent), hit with a weapon (5 percent) or strangled (4 percent).

Murder and manslaughter victims by manner of death, 1997-2001

More women strangled

Thirty-one percent of women are stabbed to death. Shooting is much less common among female victims (15 percent) than among men. Women are more often killed by strangulation or suffocation than men (24 percent).

Many women killed at home

Two-thirds of women are killed in their own home. One in ten at somebody else’s house and one in ten in the street Men are more likely to be killed in the street: 40 percent. Another 40 percent are killed in a house. In addition, one in ten men are killed in cafés, pubs and bars.

Jan Hoogenboezem