Overview
- Police registrations show a small national increase in recorded residential burglaries in the first half of the year, about 10,000 incidents versus roughly 9,800 in the same period last year.
- The province of Utrecht bucked the national direction with a 3 percent fall to 881 recorded burglaries in the first half of the year compared with 910 a year earlier.
- Within Utrecht results vary sharply by municipality: twelve of 26 municipalities saw rises while 14 saw falls or no change, producing large local swings from small absolute numbers.
- Concrete local examples include Lopik falling from six to one burglary, Eemnes rising from two to 15, and Bunschoten remaining at three incidents, illustrating how small counts inflate percentage changes.
- Authorities have not offered a public explanation for the national rise and experts note that if the increase persists it would interrupt a pre-pandemic multi-year decline and likely push police and local campaigners to focus more on prevention and resident behaviour.