Talk:Crime in Belgium

Reason for creation

This article was created as a result of Melodius's comments that a large section on this topic is irrelevant in the main Brussels article. 1652186 13:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[anonymous: I edited and deleted most of the artikel on 04/04/2007 because information was given but no actual sources. And my opinion is, if you put something on wikipedia, you have to back it up. This is not some forum on which you can express your opinion about something and post random facts. If you do post random facts concerning the subject,do so with substantial sources and stick to being INFORMATIVE I would like to emphesise that everything with a source still remains in the artikel

Mostly I did it, because it portrayed a one-sided-view on crime in Belgium

NPOV

This article is suspiciously close to the propaganda of a Flemish far-right political party, the Vlaams Blok, whose twin obsessions are presenting Brussels as a Flemish city conquered by francophones and as a hotbed of immigrant, preferably muslim, crime. I fail to see, e.g., why it should mention Muriel Degauque who has no link whatsoever with Brussels. Moreover, only crimes committed by non-whites are mentioned, but there is nothing about crimes committed by whites, about football hooliganism, far-right violence, and the like. IMO, there is nothing in this article that deserves to survive, although I have no problem with the existence of this article. The figures given here are higly suspect and their source is unknown. --Melodius 10:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I understand you have some problems with the article, but not all content is mine. Facts that I included are well referenced. And, of course, please feel free to add POV balancing content.1652186 11:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[anonymous (who deleted alot of it): a reference is not WHERE you read it, it's WHERE you can FIND it or atleast where you can read the artikel of which you speak off]

This article also appears to be very factually incorrect. I mean, what idiot added "Antwerp, the capital of Flanders"? Then there are things such as this: "Reading about Brussels in certain newspapers gives a completely different picture than if you enjoy an actual walk in the city." That couldn't be more biased towards the far-right. I get that "you don't live there so you don't know what you're talking about" argument all the time during discussions with supporters of the Vlaams Belang. I don't think this article should include subjective, even xenophobic impressions instead of objective information. --Ganchelkas 15:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Pedophilia isn't a crime, which the article seems to think. Skinnyweed 00:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Isn`t it? What about Julie, Melissa, An, Eefje, Stacy and Nathalie, and all other victims of pedophiles? LHOON 06:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Offcourse the actions of pedophilia are a crime. That is not what skinnyweed is trying to say. He is simply saying that these people are not in there right minds (some may refer to it as being sick), so it does not reflect crime or crimerates in a country. And therefor irrelevant to the matter @ hand ([user:Halsbergio] 00:51, 04/04/2007)

The sequence of "facts" given at the botttom of the "ethnicity and violence" section which to me should even not be included in an encyclopaedia. What about all the racist crimes (in the meaning of white people killing foreign people) we had here? Only one is cited... On the opposite side, we have some crimes described in a "dramatic" way that makes the article sound like frustrated people wrote it (for example, "Murat Y"..., it really sounds like a DH or HLN article where they give the first name to avoid saying the guy is a turkish; pretty smart!). Generally i think facts like that are not part of an encyclopaedic work; it is just used to biaise the article and to convince the reader that foreign people are mean.

On top the section "Results of all this" has nothing to see with the article; it is yet another fantasm of an obscure Vlaams Belanger who needs to feel comfortable with his/her ideology by writing stuff in wikipedia. Can't you leave politics out of this for a while?

In "terrorism and crime", "the same boroughs that pose safety problems (e.g. Molenbeek, Schaerbeek,...)"... I must be dreaming! Is that an assumption? On what basis are some municipalities listed? Personally I live in Schaerbeek and never had any safety problem. What are the "three dots" for?

I'll be removing most of the content of this article soon because i cannot stand this. I feel ashamed to be a Belgian when I read this article which has nothing to see with "Crime in Belgium". Julien Tuerlinckx 22:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, feel free to include any referenced racist attacks by whites. What is wrong with the DH or HLN (which, by the way, are Belgium's largest newspapers) way of mentioning a suspect's first name? Are you suggesting we should omit first names and ethnicity because otherwise, when it turns out that the perp is a foreigner, we are racists? Sounds like censorship to me... If you want to remov[e] most of the content of this article soon because i cannot stand this, you better have a good reason: removing content from Wikipedia is considered vandalism. You know, I'm ashamed to be a Belgian too, but for other reasons. 1652186 13:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

1. I'm not interested in completing a "list of attacks or murders" cause it should not be included in the artile. If you create such a list in a separate article, you will have a hard work to do cause there are lots of murders that are not yet in the list, including racist murders "by white", but mostly murders "between whites" and between "foreign people".
2. There is a lot of information one can give about a murder but here there is almost only information on the "ethnicity" of perp or victims, which makes the article biaised like User:Fateslieutenantfateslieutenant explained.
3. which, by the way, are Belgium's largest newspapers: there is no link between "largest newspaper" and "quality newspaper" and no more link between "largest newspaper" and "reliable information".
4. Personally I'm not ashamed to be a Belgian. It is just when I read this kind of things that I am.
5. Ever minded to watch at the other "crime in ..." articles? They really don't look similar to this one!

Julien Tuerlinckx 17:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree that this article focuses mainly on interracial tensions and that some more racist acts by whites could be included (though not that many as you seem to think). This is a result of the fact that this article was created in the wake of the Joe Van Holsbeeck murder, and was originally titled Safety in Brussels, where these issues are more prevalent. However, in my eyes, the solution is not to remove well referenced facts, but to include other more POV balancing and subject broadening content. 1652186 17:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Need more detailed information to be considered as "true"

I think that such an article need real data and references to valideted results to be considered seriously. Please add references where such info can be found --npettiaux 15:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest to extend the scope of this article to the whole of Belgium; moreover, terrorism is very much a separate subject and it is ridiculous to approach international terrorism as if it was somehow limited to Brussels. --Melodius 10:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

This would be a good idea, maybe start with a Safety in Belgium article and merge them if they are both small. ---moyogo 10:53, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this proposal. 1652186 17:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The question that remains is whether an article about safety (or crime ?) is the right place to examine terrorism, which has a separate article all of itself on wikipedia. Islamic Terrorism also has an article of its own, and as it is very much an international phenomenon, and I don't think it is very illuminating to examine a few sporadic incidents in just one small European country where nothing very specific has (yet ?) happened. Perhaps it would be more interesting to add a "Belgian" section in the main article.

The existing article is filled with unsupported facts and debatable links:

1. link between certain communes and crime; is the murder rate in Molenbeek, e.g., higher than in Uccle ? 2. link between North-Africans and crime 3. no distinction is made between petty crime and murder 4. isolated and rare incidents like the murder on Joe Van Holsbeek (which btw was committed by a non-resident foreigner) are represented as being somehow representative 5. it is simply untrue that the French riots blew over to Brussels

A serious article would focus on official crime statistics, available here : http://incc.fgov.be/ --Melodius 13:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

1. If you have access to official crime statistics, you should be in a better place to prove that. I'm really not gonna waste my time on proving something that no reasonable person contests.

2. I never claimed that, but if you wish, please refer to Van San, Marion, Criminaliteit en criminalisering. Allochtone jongeren in België, ISBN 9053565256.

3.Yeah right, certainly not in the sentence According to Urban Audit, Brussels has the fourth highest crime rate of all European capitals and a murder rate about five times higher than that of Paris (but only two times higher than in Inner London, and the overall crime rate is similar to that of Paris).

4.Why, for being mentioned? Please refer to any sentence that says that murder during a daytime robbery in a populated place is common.

5. Yup, it was purely by coincidence that over 200 vehicles caught fire in November.

And once again, most of the unreferenced claims in the article are not mine, but that of another editor.1652186 13:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Marion Van San isn't a reliable source, on the contrary, her work is immensely criticised by other criminologists and sociologists. Or as taken from an interview with juvenile criminologist Lode Walgrave, who is a professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, so a relatively reliable expert:

"Maar we moeten dan wel op wetenschappelijke wijze te werk gaan, en dan hebben we het als academici soms moeilijk om ons verstaanbaar te maken. We moeten nu eenmaal concurreren met allerhande lekentheorieën, terwijl de realiteit stukken ingewikkelder is. Zijn migranten criminelen, ja of nee? Daar kàn je geen eenvoudig antwoord op geven. Marion van San heeft dat in haar fameuze rapport geprobeerd, maar het resultaat is wetenschappelijk zó simplistisch dat het eigenlijk geen nieuwe informatie oplevert, en dat het gemakkelijk misbruikt kan worden. Maar het slaat wel aan hè, Het Nieuwsblad en Het Laatste Nieuws kunnen dat dan in een mooi grafiekje met veel kleurtjes gieten."

For the English-speaking amongst us, he says the work of Marion Van San is very simplistic scientifically-speaking and that it is, basically, sensationalistic. So if you have no other sources but her book...

Also, your usage of the phrase "that no reasonable person contests" says a lot about the factual accuracy of your contributions. A lot of the supporters of the Vlaams Belang also use that phrase during debate quite often, it comes down to "it's true because the Vlaams Belang says so". --Ganchelkas 12:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Once again, I didn't have to prove anything, since nothing needing reference was claimed, and the section is not even written by myself. However, I see no reason why Walgrave would be more reliable than Van San. By the way, the word sensationalistic (nor any synonym) isn't mentioned in your exerpt (which may be copyvio). As for your latter paragraph, I will not be reacting to this, but please refrain from accusations you can't prove. 1652186 19:18, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The sentence "Maar het slaat wel aan hè, Het Nieuwsblad en Het Laatste Nieuws kunnen dat dan in een mooi grafiekje met veel kleurtjes gieten." can be summarised as "It's sensationalistic.", it's not a violation of copyright, but a summary, the essence of that sentence is that Van San's work is sensationalistic. And I do refrain from accusations I can't prove, but the facts are as they are: if you claim that what you included should remain in the article only "because no reasonable person contests it", then I seriously doubt whether it should be included at all.

I can't confirm that Walgrave is more reliable, but he is a professor, he is widely considered to be an authority in the field, and he, as well as many other sociologists and criminologists have criticised the work of Van San because it is not objective and simplifies the situation. So that may cast a shadow of doubt on the factual accuracy of the Van San's work. Anyway, I think you should be concerned about copyright problems, as you refer to Van San's work to "prove" the factual accuracy of your contributions, but I don't see her name or any of her works mentioned in the article. --Ganchelkas 19:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Errr... Once again, there is nothing in the article that needs a reference from Van San, certainly nothing witten by myself. And I don't think it would be illegal to write about something in your own words that somebody else wrote about before (otherwise there wouldn't be much to write about anymore...) 1652186 13:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

What a coincidence, here is antoher reference: Abnormaal veel minderjarige allochtonen in criminaliteitscijfers, Het Laatste Nieuws. Minors of foreign nationality, representing 4.4% of the population, are responsible for 24% of cases presented before youth judges. If foreign descent is taken into account, this number rises to 44%. 1652186 17:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Coincidence, not really, they also turn out to be the poorest segment of the population, as well as the least educated therefore with the least chances of succeeding the "regular way". Do you have the stats about the percentage of Northern African immigrant living in poverty in Belgium? I remember seeing it was something incredible like 1/2 or something like that. ---moyogo 17:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I found after searching for 2 minutes [1], maybe you'll find more if you dare looking beyond the race - crime corralation and try to see what the whole picture really is. These numbers come from a study from the UA (Universiteit Antwerpen/Antwerp University) published in MO* (Mondiaal Magazine [2]): 59% of the immigrants of Turkish origins live in poverty, and 55% of those of Maroccan origins when for the total Belgian population that number is 15,2%. The study declares the risk of living in poverty does not decrease through the second and third generations. The possible cause for the lack of opportunity to go up the social ladder could be low education level, lack of job opportunities and discrimination. If you take that into accound you'll see 24% of criminal cases being with immigrants makes total sense. ---moyogo 18:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to include this. 1652186 18:40, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

If foreign descent is taken into account, this number rises to 44% - Rise from what to what? what time span? rise of what? --moyogo 19:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The article about the study: [3] with a copy [4] --moyogo 22:17, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Racism

Could we write a section on Racist violence and the resulting lack of safety for immigrants? ---moyogo 06:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Sure. But then don't be surprised if someone creates a 'Reverse racism' section which goes on to grow larger than the other.1652186 07:36, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Reverse racism? What’s that? ---moyogo 08:07, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

That's people of immigrant descent beating up or otherwise harming Belgians, just for being Belgian. 1652186 09:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that just racism? ---moyogo 10:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

According to me, yes. But apparently not according to the people who in Belgium decide what racism is (i.e. the Center for Equal Opportunities and Against Racism. 1652186 13:11, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm I guess some people can understand it that way... Racism is just racism to me, no matter which way it goes. Assuming there's a more prevalent way is ... a bit racist, I find. ---moyogo 14:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I agree, but as I've said, it's not me who finds one way more prevalent than the other. It's the Center that systematically ignores all (even founded) complaints of racism against Belgians. For example, yesterday a Belgian man was snetenced to 4 months for a racist comment towards an immigrant. I however can't imagine the look on the police officer's face if a Belgian would file a complaint for having been called 'dirty Belgian' by an immigrant (which happens daily)... 1652186 16:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Racism is racism, but you must accept that a minority can't discriminate against a majority. I think that's why you hear less of cases involving discrimination or racism against native Belgians, and I must add that I haven't heard of any case involving discrimination or racism against native Belgians at all. Violence committed by the children of immigrants against native Belgians rarely has racism as a motive, it's mostly a reaction to the situation the children of immigrants in our country have to live in. Ironically enough, such violence is both a consequence and a cause of discrimination against immigrants and their children. --Ganchelkas 20:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

So if a gang of immigrants is going around shouting things like dirty Belgian and we'll kill all whites (if you don't believe this actually happens in Belgium, I'll be glad to provide some references) that is not racism or discrimination, but a justified reaction to the real racism by employers? By the way, do you really think that if Guido Demoor had been a Muslim, they would have killed him? And what to think of the recent laws that reserve new public employment offers uniquely to people of immigrant descent. If that isn't discrimination, then what is?1652186 15:18, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

If that indeed happens, which I doubt, it's a consequence of collective radicalisation, which only could've occured because of discrimination by the native community, as there must be something to be radicalised. And yes, I do think that if Guido Demoor had been a Muslim, they would still have acted in the same way. I must also note that you are misrepresenting the facts, they didn't kill Demoor, he died from internal bleedings that perhaps weren't caused by the hits (further research will have to show that), and they more than likely didn't intend to kill Demoor. Eyewitnesses even confirm Demoor started attacking one of the group, and the group responded. They responded in a terrible manner, that is true, but it's possible they didn't start it. --Ganchelkas 16:59, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I will not be responding to your interpretation of facts, which I find outrageous, but your facts aren't quite correct: Eyewitnesses even confirm Demoor started attacking one of the group. Could you please prove that even one witness, except the suspects and their lawyers, has declared this?1652186 19:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Het Laatse Nieuw, yesterday's edition, or that of the day before, as well as the VRTnieuws site. And why is my explanation of one possible interpretation of the facts outrageous, for the sake of this article both stories must be included until the case has been judged by a court of law. If the possibility exists Demoor started it, then that option must be included until proven otherwise. --Ganchelkas 19:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It should indeed be included that the suspects claim this, but it should not be presented as an established fact, as you would like to. That is is outrageous. And I'm sorry, but nor in HLN or VRT I see anything else than that the suspects and their lawyers claim that Demoor started the violence. 1652186 12:54, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Melodius: please provide corrections, nuance and precisions where needed. Proposal for deletion won't help. We need an article on this but it obviously needs work from people with different backgrounds. ---moyogo 11:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing, repeat nothing in this article that is worth keeping. Already, the impression given is that all crime in Belgium is committed by North-Africans, except for racist murders, that are of course committed by neonazi Flemings. I hate to disappoint y'all, but that is hardly representative of what this article is supposed to be about. The truth is well known, there is simply no correlation between ethnicity and crime in general in Belgium; what correlations there are, are linked to specific kinds of crime. Glenn Audenaert, a spokesman for the Police, declared yesterday at "Terzake" that Moroccans no more (or no less...) crime-prone than native Belgians according to Police statistics. Our VB buddy has been unable to answer my questions, probably because he just isn't interested in a serious article on the topic. As for myself, I don't feel the need to write an article about the subject, but that hardly disqualifies me from criticizing it. The methodology of this article sucks big time, and it deserves deletion, pure and simple. --Melodius 12:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a slight feeling that I'm being spoken to when you refer to VB buddy. That's weird, cause I never said I was (and I'm not BTW) a VB member. As far as your questions are concerned, I haven't answered yet because I didn't get the point in most of them. However, I'll do it right away if you want to. 1652186 13:11, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I am afraid I fail to understand why "we need an article on this". I have searched the wikipedia for articles on Crime in France, Crime in Germany, Crime in Thailand, Crime in Uzbekistan, Crime in Togo, Crime in Yemen, and Crime in the Netherlands; none exists. While I could see that we might "need" an article on Crime in Sicily, for example, as part of an investigation of mafia fact and fiction, Belgium is not the source of nor the venue for especially high crime rates - although it does have a remarkable history of high-profile child abductions of particular viciousness towards the end of the last century (given only three sentences, compared to the fifteen about violence and terrorism committed by mionorities; only one line describes violence against minorites by Belgians).

The poor English aside ("The Results of All This"?), this article is ridden with opinions masquerading as facts ("serious safety issues in Brussels are mostly limited to residential boroughs with a low income population, mainly composed of North African immigrants" - care to provide some information to back that statement up?) and even some statements that are contradicted by the article itself (how, for example, can the Youssef Baccouche trial have received no media attention when the author provides a link to an article about it in Het Laatste Nieuws?).

Worse still is the "semi-factual" approach - for example, a section about sexual assualt discusses primarily sexual assault by immigrants. The facts are correct, but chosen in such a way as to give a false impression (specifically, the impression that all sexual assault is the work of immigrants); it is not that difficult a trick, and is much favoured by extremists, although anyone can do it: find, for example, the factual inaccuracies in the following:

"Mass Murder: Mass murder of disenfranchised populations, including genocide committed by Roman Catholics, also occurs in history. In the Second World War, the Nazi government, led by Roman Catholic "Fuhrer" Adolf Hitler, killed between four and six million Jews, as well as millions of others others, including homosexuals, in specially-build death camps. As many as fifteen million people were murdered or worked to death (others were mutilated) in the Congo Free State, which belonged at the time to the Roman Catholic King of Belgium, Leopold II. More recently, Roman Catholic priests and parishoners have been found guilty of crimes against humanity for their role in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which up to 900,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed, often by being hacked to death with machetes. The victims were sometimes killed while seeking refuge in churches, and some churches have now been turned into memorials in which the remains of those killed can be seen on display."

None of what is written above is factually innaccurate; it is simply misleading. Pol Pot was not a Roman Catholic, nor was Stalin, nor, to my knowlege, was Custer. More importantly still, millions of Roman Catholics lead blameless and innocent lives; and yet, from what I have written, one might suppose that mass murder was one of the sacraments, and that the article under discussion was just another RC plot to set about the most extreme unction. The article called Crime in Belgium is, as it stands, just as unbalanced and misleading - and yes, I am Belgian. I lived for ten years in Schaerbeek, and I now live near the Bad St Joost, so I know whereof I write. I believe the article under discussion should be considered "offensive" in its current form, as defined by Wikipedia, and I am not particularly convinced that it can be fixed - nor, indeed, that it is worth fixing. Fateslieutenantfateslieutenant

Dutch language references

The Dutch language reference are totally useless to most en.wikipedia users. They are nice and all, but should be found on a similar article on nl.wikipedia. We can't expect en.wikipedia visitors to find these useful. Please take the time to find more references in English. --moyogo 18:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I take it as a coincidence that this remark comes now that I have finally found an undisputable though Dutch reference for something that others have been contesting for months. If you check my edits, you will see that I try to include English language references whenever possible. However, this is quite difficult for subjects that aren't world news. I do not think that there is any objection againt including foreign language references to check a specific fact, if necessary a user can easily translate it online to verify. 1652186 18:48, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Undisputable, I don't know, what's the study HLN is refering to in [5]? It doesn't really help finding it. What's a reference if you can only find echos of it. --moyogo 19:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you claiming that the largest newspaper in Belgium is an unreliable source which is capable of spreading false information? I don't know their source either, if you want to write them a request, go ahead, but it has come far if we have to go look of references of references. 1652186 19:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am saying no entity in the press is foolproof. The press can say whatever they want, especially with figures and stats. If you disagree, that's another matter. The point is you have a reference in Dutch that people can translate to get pretty much exactly what is already in the article. I'm saying 2 things: 1. it would be nice to have English references, I'm not saying Dutch references are not references but they'd be better on nl.wikipedia. 2. it would be nice to have a track to go further than this paragraph in HLN. --moyogo 19:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree on both points, and if I see an opportunity I will pursue it, but currently this is all there is, and until then it is enough. 1652186 19:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

44%

I'm sorry I fail to understand Minors of foreign nationality, representing 4.4% of the population, are responsible for 24% of cases presented before youth judges. If foreign descent is taken into account, the latter percentage rises from 24 to 44%. even after clarification. So 4.4% of the population is foreign minors, and is responsible for 24% of youth cases presented before judges. Now you say that same percentage rises to 44% if foreign descent is taken into account... but didn't we start with foreign minors? Maybe you need to reread your reference?

En als men rekening houdt met "de vreemde origine" die vermeld wordt in de dossiers, los van de nationaliteit, klimmen de percentages tot 28% op het niveau van het parket en tot 44% bij de rechters.

Translated throught Systransoft.com as And if one takes into account the strange origine is mentioned that in the files, apart from nationality, climbs the percentages up to 28% at the level of the parquet floor and up to 44% at the judges. So this means it's 28% of the cases in the "parket" and 44% of the cases "by de rechters". Your statement is totally wrong because it says the percentage of youth crime rises to 44%, but it is 44% of the cases "bij de rechetrs" and "bij de rechters" only which is only a portion of all the crimes in Belgium. Please reread your paragraphs and correct the text. ---moyogo 19:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The article is about minors only and says that:

• 4.4% of the minor population has a non-EU nationality and is responsible for 19% of the justice department decisions and 24% of cases before youth judges.
• An unknown percentage is of foreign descent, though with Belgian citizenship, and these two groups combined are responsible for 28% of the justice department decisions and 44% of cases before youth judges.

I'll try to put this clearly in a sentecne, if you stick to the facts, feel free to adjust. 1652186 19:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a rather interesting figure actually. If 28% of the cases are with foreign minors and 44% of the cases that end up at the judge level are with foreign minors it can mean two things: either the cases of the foreign minors or more serious than those of non foreign minors or it could mean that there is a discrimination against foreign minors because they have less chances of not going all the way up to the judges. ---moyogo 19:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You're right that it's either a matter of gravity of the facts or discrimination. If it is the latter however (which I doubt by the way), it's not necessarily discrimination against foreigners. It could also mean that foreign youths are more frequently judged by a youth judge (who can at most send them to an institution till 20) and ethnic Belgians are more referred to a real adult judge. Now that would be discriminating. 1652186 15:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It's always a combination of factors, evidently, but I do think that you'll find that prosecutors and police officers are much tougher with offenders who are either visibly of North-African origin, or who have a name that is considered to be a sign of North-African origin. --Ganchelkas 20:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

This is once again a severe unjustified allegation, indirectly claiming that all Belgian police and judges are racist. 1652186 15:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

That is not what claimed, as I said it's always a combination of factors, but on the whole the facts do indicate that immigrants and children of immigrants are more likely to be put on trial, and to receive a harsher punishment.

And it's not just in Belgium that such things happen, it's a common phenomena around the world. Just look at the US, a black person who is on trial is much more likely to get the death penalty than a white person for the same crime.--Ganchelkas 16:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

An evaluation of this article after its two monhts of existence

Over the last few days, I've done some serious editing/balancing to this article, which, in my mind, is still a piece of junk.

It is clear from the glaring ommisions in the article that the original author, User:1652186 did not have the intention to write an article about crime in Belgium, but that instead he was, and still is, using Wikipedia to promote a personal agenda. The attention devoted by the author to making sure that as many criminal acts as possible are linked to the North-African immigrant population, and to portraying Belgium as a singularly dangerous country, is completely disproportionate. He made no serious attempt to discuss crime in general in Belgium. Glaring ommisions were, for example, the port of Antwerp as a hub for international drug traffic, Belgium as a center for the production of synhetic drugs, the recent boom in marihuana plantations, white-collar crime, and family murder drama's, to mention but a few.

It is also clear that the relation between nationality/descent and crime in Belgium deserves some discussion: There needs to be a balanced overview of the positions on this issue. I think I have started to do this.

I would like to think that anybody who creates a Wikipedia article would at least take the responsibility to make sure that it is balanced. In fact, in reading the article, it should not be clear to the reader what the author's political motives are.

It is all good and well to claim that there are others who will edit this article and that anybody has a right to an opinion. I think that while this is certainly true, it misses an important point. User:1652186 devotes a lot of attention to making sure that nobody touches the slew of facts on this page about crimes committed by foreigners, while the most relevant facts already have their own page. It is clear, in my opinion, that this list could be summarized in a paragraph or two. On the other hand there is no attempt by user User:1652186 to correct any of the errors of ommission, or to provide a balanced point of view about ethicity and crime. I suggest that it is the responsibility of User:1652186, if he is to be taken seriously, to start working on making positive contributions to this article. I am very weary of censoring any facts. Instead, I suggest that User:1652186 does the necessary to summarize his contributions to reasonable proportions, and, if he feels up to it, provide us with some information on crime in Belgium in a neutral voice.

--81.83.163.80 12:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I will respond by saying, once again, that it was never my intention to create an article on 'crime in Belgium'. This article was created in the wake of the Joe Van Holsbeeck murder, and was originally titled Safety in Brussels, discussing recent events in that city. It was not me who moved the page to an article about the general crime situation in the whole of Belgium. Therefore, while I fully agree that this article focuses mainly on interracial tensions and that some more racist acts by whites as well as non-racial related crimes could be included, I do not see this as my task. I however invite and encourage anybody to include other more POV balancing and subject broadening content. 1652186 13:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Original Research

On reviewing this article, I have come to the conclusion that more than half of it should be considered to be Original Research.

A Wikipedia article on crime in a certain country and/or a certain period should base itself on criminology studies, or news articles giving an overview about crime. In this case, press articles on individual crimes must be considered primary sources, that should be analysed and synthesised, and upon which conclusions should be drawn. This analysis, this synthesis, these conclusions are original research. Wikipedia is no place for that.

This is why, in my opinion, references to individual criminal activities should go.--LucVerhelst 06:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I've tagged the article with some WP:OR tags. I propose to delete part of the article, like this : Crime in Belgium/Cleanup. Based on this, someone with a criminologist background should rework the article. What do you think ? --LucVerhelst 06:16, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I fully agree,Julien Tuerlinckx 19:43, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

As I have written earlier, the article's original author's intention seems to be, in my opinion, to make a compendium of indignation causing crimes in Belgium. I'm not saying it's wrong to discuss these crimes, I'm only saying that Wikipedia is not the place for it.

To summarize: the original author did not write this article from a neutral point of view, thus going against Wikipediao policy. I and others have tried to make the POV more neutral, but that doesn't mean that much of the article is at all relevant for an encyclopedia. Even though I have authored some of the parts to be deleted, I second the proposal for rewrite, and suggest that the orginal author starts a compendium of crime in Belgium using another medium than Wikipedia. --81.83.163.80 23:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Phrenology and the likes

I've marked two sentences with "citation needed". I feel that these sentences may well have some truth in it, but that at the moment they seem to be original research. I'd like to see some reputable sources that give these two claims as an explanation for Van Son's findings.

My second problem with the two sentences is my feeling that these claims are given undue weight by mentioning them here. --LucVerhelst 11:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

As per above motivation, I propose to remove the two sentences. What do you think ? --LucVerhelst 13:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think they belong there, but they could be rephrased if necessary. I don't have the impression most people think in either way. Unfortunately people don't talk much about what could be the reason for this hight crime rate in immigrant populations, yet some parties benefit from what people think. --moyogo

Theses sentences say that immigrants are criminals because they're not white, or because they're Arabs. They're racist. I think some reputable sources would be very welcome indeed to keep the sentences in the article.--LucVerhelst 20:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Crime Rate

User:Markham entered the sentence "Overall, Belgium has 9.1 murders per 100,000 population, which is approximately double the homicide rate in the United States."

I'm willing to believe that the information is correct (although the source is an opinion piece, not a journalistic or scientific article), but without framing this information in a broader context, it is not NPOV. Off course the crime rate in Belgium may be double of that of the US. I'm also sure that it's even remarkably higher than that of the Sahara desert. Belgium has a population density of 342/km², 886/sq mi. That is eleven times the population density of the U.S., which is 31/km², 80/sq mi. We could also compare the proportion rural/urban area, which in Belgium is a multiple of that of the U.S. Etcetera. Since the crime rate of a given country is almost directly connected to these variables, a NPOV-way of providing this information, is framing it in all the important data. If you don't do that, you are opinionating.

That is why I'm removing the sentence. Feel free to disagree. (I'm well aware that the right thing to do would be to add the information above to the article, making it better, more balanced. It's just that I don't feel up to it to find the right references and the correct information.) --LucVerhelst 16:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

This is Markham. I put the sentence in like that because just quoting a number of 9.1 murders per 100,000 population would probably not mean that much to most people: is that high, low, etc. By putting in the comparison to the United States (which is generally regarded as having a high murder rate), I was attempting to to provide some frame of reference. Just like when you say what Belgium's population density is in comparison to the United States. I've been to Belgium, but if I was told that some country had a population of density of 342 per km or that it had a murder rate of 9.1 per 100,000, I may not know exactly what to think without something to compare it to. However, this may all be moot, as someone else has claimed that Belgium's murder rate of 9.1 was computed incorrectly, and that the figure used to compute 9.1 included attempted murder and not just successful murders. However, I got the 9.1 figure from the Wall Street Journal, which is usually regarded as a highly credible source.

- If you want to make a comparison, then you'd best compared two comparable items.

- As I said, the fact that the figure came from the WSJ led me to believe it too. I think that the redactional control, which leads to the quality of the newspaper, isn't applied to opinion pieces, like the one you quoted. --LucVerhelst 19:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

the WSJ figures indeed are wrong (they included attempted and succesful murders which was not the case for the numbers for the USA); more on http://blog.futtta.be/2006/08/28/wall-street-journal-more-murders-in-belgium-than-in-us-wrong/

Tags

I put in some tags, for the same reasons as Talk:Crime_in_Belgium#Original_Research. --83.182.233.29 22:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

To Encyclopedia or not To Encyclopedia

Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. Not to express opinions (except for in the talk offcourse, like here.)

Would you like it if for instance.. lets say an article on a telephone, that people would start saying in the article (I know it's silly, but then again, this wont upset people):

"You should not use a normal telephone, but you should use a mobile, because it is more convenient and a normal telephone is used by people who cannot afford a mobile)"

I know its a silly and probably not that good example... but understand... an Encyclopedia is based on facts... not a fact or some facts..

A combination of unbias facts taht create the article in its whole.

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