Buurtsurveillance in de Haagse Schilderswijk: Door de ogen van jongeren in de buurt

This article examines how Dutch-Moroccan juveniles from the Schilderswijk in The Hague, a neighborhood known as relatively unsafe, experience neighborhood watch and how they cope with it. Does neighborhood watch make juveniles to reduce or to continue their deviant behavior? The authors found that particularly neighborhood watchers from their own ethnic community (‘residential fathers’) have a positive influence on juveniles. Juveniles tend to obey them more because they feel treated with understanding and respect. Also they feel uncomfortable when realizing that supervisors from their own community might know their parents and families and might tell them about their deviant behavior. The role of the family in reducing deviant behavior of migrant juveniles was not yet mentioned in the literature.