Young men are free to wear their designer duds – so long as they have an explanation ready for police who may be suspicious of their attire.
Police in the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands say they plan to begin a pilot program targeting young men in designer clothes that police don’t believe they can legally afford. If it’s not clear how the person paid for the clothes, officers may confiscate it, Quartz reported.
The aim is to reduce crime by showing young men they can’t keep their spoils, according to The Independent.
“We’re going to undress them in the street,” Rotterdam police chief Frank Paauw told De Telegraaf, a daily Dutch newspaper.
Paauw told the newspaper police “rarely” take clothes from a suspect, and some young people who don’t have a source of income will walk around in pricey clothing. “... So the question is how they get there,” he said.
A department spokesman said police plan to keep an eye out for “big Rolex[es], Gucci jackets” and similar types of apparel, Quartz reported.
“Such an expensive coat is for them what a speedboat is for an established drug boss. We will therefore expressly ask questions about origin,” Paauw told De Telegraaf.
Police will collaborate with the prosecution department, which will help determine what officers can legally confiscate, according to the publication.
Residents tell Vice they’re worried the program will lead to racial profiling.
“Police won’t consider a white guy walking around in an expensive jacket to be a potential drug dealer,” a 20-year-old man told the publication. “But it’ll be a different story with minorities.”
City official Anne Mieke Zwaneveld told Dutch newspaper AD that it is “legally very complicated” to take someone’s coat off the street.
“It is not forbidden to walk around in it,” she said. “In addition, it is often unclear how such a piece of clothing is paid and how old it is.”
The program, which will start in the Rotterdam West section of the city, follows police efforts to look more closely at the expensive cars driven by suspected criminals who didn’t have an income, The Independent reported.
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