Only a quarter of Brussels police officers live in the city

Brussels has almost 2,000 police officers in the North and Midi police zones, but only a quarter of them live in the Brussels region.

That was the message of chiefs of police Jurgen De Landsheer (Midi) and Olivier Slosse (Brussels-North) at a recent Brussels parliament hearing.

The situation has not changed in the last few years either, research by KU Leuven university sociologist Jan Hertogen has confirmed, when most members of the police also lived in Wallonia and Flanders.

De Landsheer said that there are many candidates to work for his police zone, but the need to speak both Dutch and French was a problem.

Ilyas Mouani, a Vooruit [Socialist] MP is sceptical that language is the main issue, asking: “How is it possible that a city with more than one million inhabitants does not find enough candidates for its own police? It certainly has nothing to do with language.”

For Mouani, the lack of representation exacerbates the key issues that there exists neither enough non-white police officers, nor trust between young people and the police.

“Too many officers are out of touch with local residents,” Mouani said, pointing out, for example, that a regular six-man patrol at Ixelles’ Porte de Namur and Matonge district is 100% white.

“There is a positive evolution in terms of diversity in other public services in Brussels, but unfortunately not in the police,” Mouani added.

“The relationship between the police and young people in Brussels has not improved in recent years. The negative clichés remain on both sides.”

This leads to problems, unrest and demonstrations, he said. At a 1 May (Workers’ Day) demonstration, stones and bottles were thrown at the police and two police vehicles were damaged.

“The reality is that when a young person from, say, a neighbourhood in Anderlecht makes it known that he wants to go to the police academy, he is no longer welcome in his neighbourhood.”

Tragic cases such as confrontations and collisions with police causing the deaths of 17-year-old Mehdi Bouda in August 2019 and 19-year-old Adil Charrot in April 2020 have exacerbated the “us and them” feeling.

While Slosse said the police is not “an occupying force, but part of the neighbourhood”, Mouani, who grew up in the Cité Modèle in Laeken, is not convinced.

"At the police academy there is a course on diversity, but it is voluntary," he said. "Make it mandatory. Officers should go out with neighbourhood organisations or street workers for a few weeks.

"There are certainly officers who mean well, but there is also a group that joins the police for the adrenaline rush they get once they have a helmet on and can wave their baton."

He added that it should also be questioned why so many officers from different ethnic backgrounds leave the police after a few years.

At the parliamentary hearing, MP Celia Groothedde (Groen) also noted the ingrained mistrust of the police from what she has heard from Peterbos and other Anderlecht neighbourhoods plagued by drug trafficking. Young people with a migration background feel targeted by the police, she said.

She said the priority should be strengthened cooperation between the police and civil society.

She praised community organisations such as SAAMO Brussels that aim to fight exclusion, which mediates between the forces of the law and residents of Peterbos, which has seen many incidents due to drug wars.