The radical shift in crime is forcing the police to develop methods for enforcing online law and order. The same applies to providing victim support. Seeing the victims of online crime experience serious consequences, two operational police officers initiated a new policing method to provide support to local victims of online crime. In this article, we report on our interviews with twenty police officers involved in a regional pilot scheme. This was part of our independent evaluation of this method, which is now being implemented nationally in the Netherlands.
After desk research and interviews with key actors, using a theoretical evaluation approach, we interviewed local police officers who provided support to online crime victims during their emergency service shifts.
Although these police officers reported little real affinity with online crime themselves, they expressed the need for the police to do more to combat it. They criticised the fact that hardly anything about online crime is conveyed in training and refresher courses. The explicit learning-by-doing strategy of this method was generally appreciated. The police officers listened to victims with empathy, provided practical advice and social-emotional support, reassured victims and recorded the reports. However, not every officer felt sufficiently equipped to do so. We also saw significant evidence of victim blaming in the police officers’ reflections.
Based on these findings, we make recommendations for the application and further development of this policing method as well as future research.
