Combined police zone: time for change, also in Brussels

“I am glad that support for a fusion of the six police zones in Brussels has mounted so quickly,” Johan Van den Driessche, party leader in the Brussels Regional Parliament says. His comments come after a citizens’ initiative that launched a petition for this. “In that way, Brussels politicians can no longer ignore this pressing issue and hopefully understand that the fusion is a necessary first step towards a better security policy in Brussels.”

A fusion of the six police zones is the minimum requirement for improving security in the Brussels-Capital Region and fighting crime. Almost all security specialists, both domestically and abroad, agree with this. “Will such a fusion solve everything? Of course not,” Johan Van den Driessche acknowledges. “But it is definitely a crucial precondition to making serious progress with regard to security.”

‘Closeness’ is a specious argument

The argument that fusion would result in losing the ‘closeness’ of the police is, in the opinion of Johan Van den Driessche, not convincing. According to him, the fallacy arises in thinking that ‘closeness’ can only be locally driven. “New York and London are also liveable and relatively safe cities, and they also take a closeness approach. More to the point: with a few clicks on a website, you can even view the crime figures of last week per neighbourhood. Why wouldn’t that be possible here?”

I have not heard a single sensible argument in the past few months for not combining the six police forces,” Johan Van den Driessche states. “I can only conclude that what the opponents of a fusion are after isn’t the closeness of the police to the citizens, but closeness of the police to the mayors. Therefore I call on the people to all sign the online petition for a combined Brussels police zone. I call on Brussels’ politicians to also support our resolution proposal for such a police fusion.”

You can view and sign the ‘BRUPOL Now’ petition on https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/brupol-now-tout-de-suite-nu.html