The Dutch Police and the Explosion of Violence in the Early 1980s

Abstract

The first half of the 1980s is by far the most violent period in Dutch post-war history. Demonstrations against the eviction of squatters from occupied buildings and against nuclear power plants invariably culminated in battles with the police. This chapter argues that the explosion of violence and its containment can best be understood as the effect of the non-simultaneous carryover of the cultural changes that started in the late sixties. The new outlook and the new manners started to penetrate the police much later than elsewhere, right at the moment a backlash occurred in politics and society. That belated penetration would enable the police to successfully contain the violence.