
Dutch prison crisis: A shortage of prisoners - jjp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37904263
======
awjr
The counter argument as to why there seem to be a lack of prisoners is under-
resourcing the police. However the whole judicial system within the
Netherlands appears to take a holistic approach to people, trying to help
people get their lives back on track.

Yes some people do need locking up, but there seems to be a recognition that
locking up an addict for theft doesn't solve the long-term issue. Teaching
them to manage and overcome their addiction brings significantly better long-
term results to society.

More interestingly the article mentions that dangerous criminals are locked
up, but also vulnerable individuals that have broken the law and because the
best help to get them back on track is within the prison system.

Dutch prisons are not just there to incarcerate, but to help people back to
being fully functioning members of society.

To get "revolving door" prisoners down to 10% vs 56% in the UK is a huge
achievement.

~~~
vivekd
I used to think this way before I started practicing Criminal law. But after
interacting with criminals, I'm starting to realize that these are not just
otherwise innocent and good people who fell onto hard times or had trouble
with an addiction. There are genuinely bad people out there, who just want to
get what they want and are perfectly willing to hurt others to get it. It
seems to me that, absent a desire to change on their own part (which very few
of them ever show) they will just continue to commit crimes and hurt society.

Yes many of them are addicts. However, addiction is not one of those things
that someone just tries a drug and gets hooked and turns to crime. There are
underlying mental issues that create an addict and those same issues tend to
make them very bad people.

~~~
CreRecombinase
If that's true, then there are lots of genuinely bad people wandering the
streets of the Netherlands. If that's true then either 1) they're doing
terrible things all the time and the state just isn't doing anything about it
(this doesn't seem to be the case), or 2) these "bad" people, bad as they may
be, aren't causing much trouble by being amongst the general public.

~~~
vivekd
There are dutch people in this comments section saying that laws are too
lenient and that harsher prison sentences are needed. That should count for
something. There was one commentor talking about how someone had assassinated
a front-running political candidate and gotten off after a measly 12 years.
That suggests to me that something is wrong.

~~~
chc
The evidence that prison sentences are too lenient can't be "Look at this
sentence that seems shorter than I'd prefer." Instead, if you want to convince
people who don't already agree with you, you need to show that these short
sentences create societal problems.

------
finid
_If somebody has a drug problem we treat their addiction, if they are
aggressive we provide anger management, if they have got money problems we
give them debt counselling. So we try to remove whatever it was that caused
the crime._

Here's hoping that they don't privatize prisons, like we have in the US.

------
martijn_himself
Dutch national here. I'm pretty sure this is largely due to lenient prison
sentences, no prison sentences at all for minor offences, and unsolved crimes.

The cold-blooded convicted killer of the frontrunner in the Dutch elections in
2002 was released after _12_ years, something which is unthinkable in other
countries.

~~~
Cthulhu_
The main thing is that there's a difference in perspective. In e.g. the US
legal system, prison time is punishment, a form of vengeance, of paying your
debt to society. (and nowadays, a means to get a large slave labor force). In
NL and Finland and the like, prison is more like forced rehabilitation - it
recognises that committing crimes have a reason, and by solving the reason you
solve the criminal behaviour.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> In NL and Finland and the like, prison is more like forced rehabilitation -
> it recognises that committing crimes have a reason, and by solving the
> reason you solve the criminal behaviour.

As a Dutch guy, I agree with this in general. However, what the system does
not take into account is that some people are just broken beyond any hope of
ever being fixed. For example, there was a news story a while back about some
petty criminal who stole some iPhones from a locker room and got caught. It
was the 163rd time he got arrested. How do you deal with someone like that in
a civilised manner ?

~~~
saganus
I'm sure there are ways to isolate him in say, a psychiatric hospital, where
he can get treatment if there's any.

Of course, if your point is that certain people are beyond help, then I guess
you can always find examples where this is true and then maybe you can set
certain rules specific for those extreme cases.

But I think that doesn't invalidate the GP's point. In most cases helping the
person recover is actually possible so it's worth giving that road a try.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> I'm sure there are ways to isolate him in say, a psychiatric hospital, where
> he can get treatment if there's any.

No, there aren't. You can't force someone into psychiatric care unless they
are a danger to themselves or others and even then it's a difficult process.

> But I think that doesn't invalidate the GP's point. In most cases helping
> the person recover is actually possible so it's worth giving that road a
> try.

I agree. But the system needs to acknowledge that it simply is not possible
for some people. I don't think we should wait for someone to get arrested 100+
times to try a different approach.

~~~
saganus
I think we are saying the basically the same thing.

My point was that someone that gets arrested not 100+ times, but even 5+ or
10+ is probably someone having serious issues participating in society
(assuming we are not talking about North Korea or some other dictatorship
regime with absurd incarceration laws).

Sometimes the culprit is going to be a medical reason for which we can try a
medical treatment, but if not, there might be other possible treatments like
those used with gang members (watch "La Vida Loca" documentary).

When all this fails, then we can maybe argue that we are dealing with one of
those people for which there is no possible help, but it's not until now
(hopefully) that we consider some potentially uncivilized way of dealing with
these extremes.

That's how I would like to (broadly) deal with these people anyway. Not saying
it's what happens, unfortunately.

------
Waterluvian
Maybe some prisons can fundamentally change to becoming some sort of YMCA-like
environment. I imagine a lot of the prisoners are non violent. If so, I wonder
if you could co-mingle those who live at the "prison" with those who go for
the social activities and whatnot.

~~~
rwmj
This sort of exists in the UK. When I was young I volunteered for CSV (now
rebranded "Volunteering Matters"), but a good section, possibly 1/3rd of the
people there were prisoners on day release or people who had been given (non-
voluntary) community service as an alternative to prison.

Quite good, you definitely got to meet all types of people.

Sadly unlike the Simpsons joke I cannot trade my voluntary work against future
crimes.

------
messo
The Netherlands is actually renting out prisons to Norway (and others).
Norwegian prisons are famously comfortable and aimed at rehabilitation
([https://youtu.be/01mTKDaKa6Q?t=4m18s](https://youtu.be/01mTKDaKa6Q?t=4m18s))
but we still have draconian drug laws (thanks to the US) that keep filling up
the few prisons we do have. Half of our prison population is in for drug-
related crimes.

Luckily this is about to change, as our minister of health recently proposed
to copy what Portugal has done – decriminalize all drug use and move all drug
related problems to the health system, not the judicial system.

To bad for the Netherlands – they will probably loose a good customer.

~~~
kaared
According to [https://www.ssb.no/fengsling/](https://www.ssb.no/fengsling/),
for 2014 only 25% of inmates were incarcerated due to drug crimes. Of new
incarcerations in 2014, drug crimes represented about 18% (because of other
shorter sentences, e.g. traffic or financial crimes).

------
OliverJones
This reduction in prison population is, at root, a consequence of ending drug
prohibition. In the US, state voters are working on this in places like
Colorado, Washington, and now my home state, Massachusetts. So far, voters
have had to do it. Legislatures can't, yet, do it, because the vested special
interests in continuing prohibition are too strong.

I'm sure somebody can speak for California; I don't know much about the
situation there.

The Washington cannabis-legalization model is based on a juridical argument:
it's crazy to kick young people to the curb, take away their scholarships, and
throw them in jail, for pot smoking, even though smoking pot is harmful. It
wastes time and distracts the police from dealing with worse stuff like "human
trafficking" (kidnapping teens and compelling them to work in the sex trade)
and domestic violence.

The Colorado / Massachusetts model is based on a recreational argument.
Cannabis is safer and less harmful than alcohol. People will use substances
for fun. The less harmful those substances are, the better.

Both models involve regulation: purity, labeling, "carding" kids to keep them
away from the stuff. Both involve taxation.

The recreational model is harder to use when arguing to end the prohibition of
other drugs. Heroin and cocaine are, in fact, safer than alcohol when criminal
gangs aren't involved in delivering them to users. The statistics come from
experiments in various places where clinical decriminalization has been tried.
But that's a very hard argument to make. The juridical argument is easier to
use to convince people.

Both models cut down on police work, court work, and prison populations. As
prohibition gradually contracts, lots of people will find themselves out of
work: El Chapo and his cartel gangs, the Crips and Bloods, local gangs like
the Insane Unknowns (who controlled the neighborhood where I lived as a
graduate student on the south side of Chicago), police, probation workers,
prison workers, and so forth.

People resist being thrown out of work, so eliminating prohibition will take
another generation. People with access to legislatures (police, court, prison
people) will resist there. The other side will fight it in the streets. But it
will happen.

More info? Chasing the Scream, by Johann Hari.
[http://www.worldcat.org/title/chasing-the-scream-the-
first-a...](http://www.worldcat.org/title/chasing-the-scream-the-first-and-
last-days-of-the-war-on-drugs/oclc/881418255)

~~~
petra
Heroin and Cocaine are safer than Alcohol ? Can you share some info please ?

~~~
OliverJones
Paradoxical, isn't it? Here are the reason heroin and cocaine, delivered
safely, are safer than alcohol.

Part of this counter-intuitive claim stems from the fact that alcohol has
common and dangerous side effects like domestic violence and automobile
violence.

Another part of it comes from statistical evidence showing the other
compounds, when delivered safely (and not by criminal gangs) are not as
dangerous as believed.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/11/04/everythin...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2013/11/04/everything-
youve-heard-about-crack-and-meth-is-wrong/#3503ec11e024)

[http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP325.html](http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP325.html)

Finally, consider the Iron Law of Prohibition: Prohibiting a substance drives
out all but the most potent (easiest to smuggle) formulations of the
substance. That makes the shit more dangerous.

Look, the claim is NOT that heroin and cocaine are not shit. They are. The
claim is that the war on drugs has exaggerated their shittiness to justify
itself.

------
waterflame
Apparently the Dutch are not as smart as the Americans. It's simple: 1-
Legalize Guns so people can shoot each other over anything 2- Privatize
Prisons so that greedy CEOs can take over the "business" 3- Create laws that
can criminalize you for any stupid thing you do, procedures that make everyone
frustrated, and an economy that keeps you bankrupt most of the time

~~~
LeonM
Of course you need to legalize guns, it's to protect yourself from other
people with guns!

The only solution to the shootings in the US is to equip more people with
guns, you know, for "protection".

~~~
skoczymroczny
Or to have a chance against a guy armed with a knife.

~~~
tynpeddler
Or for a small person to have a chance against a big person. Or an old person
to have a chance against a young person. Or for one person to have a chance
against lots of people.

------
tyfon
Norwegian here. We are actually renting a whole prison complex in Netherlands
to get our own queues down without investing.

[https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norsk-fengsel-i-
nederland-1.12110...](https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/norsk-fengsel-i-
nederland-1.12110632) (Translate it with your favorite tool)

------
msvalkon
> Frans Carbo, the prison guards' representative from the FNV union, says his
> members are "angry and a little bit depressed". Young people don't want to
> join the prison service he adds "because there is no future in it any more -
> you never know when your prison will be closed".

Well this truly sounds abhorrent.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Actually no, it sounds utopian - closing prisons because crime is low is a
good thing.

~~~
apetresc
I'm certain he was being sarcastic.

~~~
msvalkon
Correct.

------
mcv
By sheer coincidence, we had a short vacation to Veenhuizen last weekend.
Visited the prison museum, drove past several other prisons (I believe the
village has been home to about 5 different prisons over the years).
Originally, the layout of the village had the prisons (or other correctional
facilities, before they turned it into a prison colony) at the center, and the
houses of the guards around it. All the houses have inspiring words on the
facade about how good it is to work and help people, and the sizes and designs
of the houses were according to a strict hierarchy among the employees. I
believe only people above a certain rank were allowed to have some types of
tree in their garden.

Extremely orderly, all of it. Nowadays it's far more pragmatic and less
restrictive of course, but there are still two prisons in active use.

------
humbleMouse
Anecdotally, I have been in jail in the netherlands before, and it's honestly
not that bad of a place to be. Delicious food, thick mattresses, private
cells. Also, all the surfaces are painted pink/yellow/white because those
colors have been shown to calm people who are locked up.

~~~
thecynh
Mind sharing what for? I assume it is quite a different experience depending
on what you are "in" for?

------
jandrese
The article says right at the top that a significant chunk of the decline is
the police turning an blind eye towards drug use and even trafficking.

I wonder how much their immigration policy has to do with it as well? If they
were accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees from war torn countries their
crime rate might not be so low.

~~~
Scarblac
Refugees in general have a very low crime rate. They just escaped a war, get
help that they're thankful for and want to get their lives on track in their
new country.

It's the illegal immigrants for economic reasons that find life is very hard
that are a problem.

------
yxhuvud
The same thing have been happening in Sweden.

------
NinoScript
Business idea: import prisoners! (jk)

~~~
nothrabannosir
That's happening; holland takes on Belgian prisoners. Or at least they did,
then did not, then did, I'm not sure where it stands right now. But definitely
happening :)

~~~
Tharkun
Belgium has an abysmal track record when it comes to prisons. It's been
repeatedly convicted for treating prisoners like cattle, for putting
psychiatric patients in regular prisons without treatment etc.

Sending some prisoners to Dutch prisons (including a prison boat, iirc) is one
of the best things that's happened to the Belgian penal system in years. Sadly
it's only a temporary relief, and it's been cancelled (and resumed) several
times.

~~~
gcp
The programme was stopped because Belgium finished building new prisons.

~~~
Tharkun
When was this? Last I heard there were still over crowding issues.

------
thght
What a lie this is..

In reality there is the decade old problem that the Dutch justice system
cannot handle the amount of criminals. Not enough judges and money for that.

Partly because of this it has become very hard in the Netherlands to even file
a police report for light to medium weight crimes committed to you. Police
simply send you away if a crime is not heavy enough in their opinion.
Criminals walk free on the street, and when they are caught they most often
are back on the street the same day, unless it is a real serious crime of
course.

At some point they even decided not to file a police report below 3Kg of
cocaine smuggling from the Dutch Antilles. Why? There were just too many doing
it and the justice system couldn't handle it..

The Netherlands in reality has a very high crime rate, but the government
found smart ways to conceal that.

~~~
rwmj
The actual policy about the 3kg of cocaine is much more interesting and rather
different from what you state. From
[http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTHAITI/Resources/Caribb...](http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTHAITI/Resources/CaribbeanC&VChapter7.pdf)

> 7.13. Toward this end, the “100% Control” policy was implemented, in which
> flights landing in Schiphol originating from the Dutch Caribbean, Suriname,
> or Venezuela are subject to extensive searches. Rather than attempting to
> scare off potential smugglers with the threat of incarceration, the Dutch
> approach was based on increasing the rate of interdiction to the point that
> smuggling becomes unprofitable. In other words, the focus was on the drugs,
> rather than the couriers, and was based on incapacitation, rather than
> traditional deterrence. Europol described the mechanics of the policy in
> this way:

> > Crews, passengers, their luggage, the cargo and the planes are
> systematically searched. Couriers with amounts of less than 3 kg of cocaine
> are not detained, unless they are arrested for the second time or another
> criminal offense is involved. Instead, the drugs are confiscated and the
> smugglers are sent back. Couriers who have been identified are registered on
> a blacklist, which is provided to KLM, Dutch Caribbean Airlines and Suriname
> Airways.

~~~
thght
You must be very naive to believe all that.. The actual amount of cocaine
smuggled into the Netherlands is currently higher than ever before.

Also, the street value for 3Kg of cocaine is far above 50.000 euro's, do you
realise how poor the people of the Dutch Antilles are? Without even a police
report and a free ride back it's a clear invitation. And I didn't even mention
the corrupt airport security, some of them make a sweet income out of this. It
is definitely not "100% control", at all..

~~~
rwmj
You said:

 _At some point they even decided not to file a police report below 3Kg of
cocaine smuggling from the Dutch Antilles. Why? There were just too many doing
it and the justice system couldn 't handle it._

I was pointing to a World Bank study describing what actually happened, which
is very different from what you said.

------
puravidas
Their system makes you feel like an asshole if you're a bad guy.

~~~
deadbunny
Well isn't that basically par for the course if you're going to break the
rules?

~~~
gcp
No sometimes they elect you president.

------
diskooo
Yeah, no wonder - you rape somebody here and you have to clean the streets for
a week. If you're unlucky that is.

Police officers are too busy with mobile speed controls. They don't (dare)
arrest anybody who's foul-mouthing them in their face. They have become
laughing stock.

Crime sentences (duration) are deplorable. Solved crime rates are way too low.

~~~
spiderfarmer
Do you have any solved crime rate statistics, when compared to other
countries?

The Police manpower is on par with the UK. And the amount of prisoners /
100.000 inhabitants is on par with Germany. See sources in my other comment.

~~~
diskooo
[https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pre...](https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fdecorrespondent.nl%2F2038%2Fopheldering-
verzocht-acht-op-de-tien-misdrijven-in-nederland-wordt-nooit-
opgelost%2F278856112084-474d5e9e&edit-text=&act=url)

A little dated, but it surely shows a trend which has only gotten worse over
the past years.

It has a comparison between The Netherlands and Germany.

Another source:
[https://translate.google.nl/translate?hl=nl&sl=nl&tl=en&u=ht...](https://translate.google.nl/translate?hl=nl&sl=nl&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrc.nl%2Fnieuws%2F2012%2F11%2F17%2Fcriminaliteit-
is-zichtbaar-puntje-van-ijsberg-a1481131)

------
dep_b
It's not a lack of crime that causes it but a lack of solved crimes. Violent
crimes for example, if a violent crime gets reported in Germany they solve the
crime in 80% of the cases but in Holland just 40%.

People organise neighbourhood watch WhatsApp groups to prevent crime instead
of relying on the police to fix things. Within ten years these groups will
probably grow into armed and organised right-wing groups. And there's a
constant flood of people trying to get into clubs with shooting ranges, the
only way to get a gun legally in The Netherlands if you're not in the police
or the army.

So people don't trust the government anymore in protecting them and they take
rights into their own hands. Not a socialist paradise that's so right and just
that nobody commits crimes anymore.

\-------

Edit 2: I'm not telling that it's not a safe place. I'm telling that when
something does happen you shouldn't rely on the police to fix it.

\-------

Thanks for the down votes without knowing the facts.

There are many sources, this is one of the more recent:

[https://duitslandinstituut.nl/artikel/10090/opvallende-
versc...](https://duitslandinstituut.nl/artikel/10090/opvallende-verschillen-
in-nederlands-en-duits-recht)

WhatsApp neighbourhood patrols:

[https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/02/29/waken-met-whatsapp-
rukt...](https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/02/29/waken-met-whatsapp-rukt-op-in-
buurten-1593855-a1140157)

[http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/960/Buitenland/article/detail/27997...](http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/960/Buitenland/article/detail/2799774/2016/07/19/Burgerwacht-
Soldiers-of-Odin-jaagt-op-criminele-asielzoekers-in-Nederland.dhtml)

Apart from that every shooting range has a huge waiting list nowadays. Just
pick the ones closest to you.

~~~
neogenix
Any data to back that up? I've lived all my live in Amsterdam and this is the
first time I've heard of this. It sounds made up.

~~~
mcv
I notice that most of the people who disagree live in Amsterdam. Maybe it's
different in other cities. Or in more rural areas.

~~~
akvadrako
Most Dutch people I've met consider Amsterdam to be one of the most dangerous
places in the country and prefer to raise kids in more suburban setting. The
statistics do say a few other cities are more dangerous, but overall Amsterdam
is representative.

~~~
mcv
I can't think of a better place to raise my kids than Amsterdam, actually.
Much better than the dreary suburban town I grew up in.

