After tireless campaigning, advocacy, and legal action by the affected communities themselves and together with NGO’s such as Bits of Freedom, PILP, and Controle Alt Delete the Amsterdam municipality seems to have relented: the Top 400 and Top 600 will be no more.
The Top 400 and 600 were predictive policing systems that automatically generated a list of ‘at risk’ youths in Amsterdam, based on problematic criteria, that would receive an oppressive mixture of increased police and state surveillance as well as additional care resources. The systems have been heavily criticised for years for their opacity and their stigmatising and discriminatory effects (see this report by Fair Trials and this report by Fieke Jansen.
Last December, the municipality explained that its new approach will be tailored to the individual rather than employing rigid inclusion criteria. Connected institutions, such as the police, the prosecutor’s office, the public health agency, and other healthcare providers, can nominate a child or young person. The new system has been officially in effect since January 2026, even though clear and detailed information about its planned functioning is not publicly available (as far as we could find).
Bits of Freedom rightly points out that although the scrapping of these systems is cause to celebrate, there is no reason to assume that we are out of the woods. Without a clear and detailed description of the functioning of this system, we are unable to scrutinise how it will impact children and their families, especially those who are racialised, in Amsterdam.
See: De Top400 en Top600 zijn eindelijk waar ze horen: in de prullenbak at Bits of Freedom.
Image from the original Bits of Freedom article.