
The Netherlands Closes Prisons Because It Doesn't Have Enough Prisoners - Dowwie
https://www.fastcoexist.com/3067771/the-netherlands-keeps-closing-prisons-because-it-doesnt-have-enough-prisoners
======
Kaotique
There are a couple reasons why there are so little people in jail in the
Netherlands and not all are positive. Crime reporting rate has never been
lower. People have very little confidence that reporting a crime will lead to
the criminal getting caught or even convicted.

Many crimes are not solved. The crime solve rate is about 2-3% which means out
of that small number of actual reported crimes only a marginal amounts get
solved.

Out of those solved crimes only a percentage reaches an actual conviction for
the criminal.

It's very common for judges to pass a community services punishment or an
electronic ankle bracelet house arrest.

Lastly. Our current police and justice department like to do magic with the
statistics to make everything seem like a colourful rainbow world where no
crime happens at all.

~~~
Maarten88
> People have very little confidence that reporting a crime will lead to the
> criminal getting caught

I thought that way too, but it's not all bad. I was recently positively
surprised when the police actually investigated a bike theft that I reported
(online) and caught and prosecuted the thief! Court session is next month, I'm
going and will take my daughter (who's bike it was) there to learn...

~~~
rhapsodic
Please reply to your comment and let us know what the outcome is, if you
remember too.

~~~
amelius
Is commenting still possible on HN after two weeks? At some point the
discussion closes, right?

~~~
rhapsodic
I don't know, but you might be right.

------
Avalaxy
For reference: in 2016, the Dutch police only investigated 157 cases out of
50,000 cases of internet fraud. So it's not like we don't have any criminals,
the police just doesn't do shit about it.

~~~
icebraining
Frankly, investigating internet fraud seems like a fool's errand in most
cases. I wonder what's the closing rate for those that do get investigated;
probably minuscule.

~~~
bkor
Often they're reporting including bank account details. There is lots of
simple to investigate fraud. Meaning: Dutch person using their own Dutch bank
account to defraud people. That should be super simple to investigate.

On technical forums you sometimes see loads of people complaining that no
action is being taken, despite pretty much giving police everything they need
(all details: persons full name, bank account details, etc). It often takes
place on e.g. Marktplaats (Dutch Ebay-like website).

~~~
jsmit
I was scammed on Marktplaats a couple of years ago, along with about 20
victims who also got scammed by the same person. We gathered a lot of
information about the scammer, down to all his personal information, ip
addresses, email accounts, advertisement details, etc. After about 2 years we
got a form in the mail if we would like to press charges and "sue" for
damages. Everybody involved filled in the forms and about one year later this
persons trial was canceled because of lack of evidence.

Not sure if it's truly hard to prove internet fraud, are understaffed or they
just don't care enough. Anyway, seems like an easy way to make a quick buck or
two for criminals. Even tho this person didn't look like a particularly
intelligent individual or even a hardcore criminal, he got away with many
scams and probably made quite a lot of money in a short period of time.

------
xxdarrenxx
Misleading article. I'm from the netherlands and a lot of police interviews
report lack off financial support and manpower.

Only criminals that get caught end up in jail.. Criminals who do not get
caught are criminals nevertheless.. And they stil do criminal things.

Correlation =/= Causation.

~~~
icebraining
OTOH, the murder rate in 2015 was also the lowest in 20 years:
[http://nltimes.nl/2016/07/29/netherlands-murder-
rate-20-year...](http://nltimes.nl/2016/07/29/netherlands-murder-rate-20-year-
low)

~~~
bkor
In loads of cases questionable deaths haven't been investigated on how they
died. Meaning: lots of murders aren't being reported/seen as murder.
Unfortunately do not have an article/reference for this, despite trying to
find it.

~~~
Tepix
What makes you think the percentage of questionable deaths has changed? If it
hasn't, an all time low murder rate still stands.

~~~
bkor
Murder isn't the same as questionable deaths?!? I don't think that has
changed. I said that in not enough cases they're checking if someone has been
murdered or not. As such, you cannot trust that murder has gone down. This has
been reported by Dutch news within the last 12 months I already mentioned I
couldn't find that report via Google.

This is exactly the same as the crime rate. Less reported figures doesn't mean
crime rate has gone down. For that one I gave elsewhere their own
investigation which shows that crime rate went up.

------
the-dude
Internal report of Dutch police / justice : there is probably 5 times more
criminality as in the statistics.

I have read here, sometime, from someone, crime statistics are based on a
survey in the UK ( instead of relying on the police ).

~~~
vidarh
> I have read here, sometime, from someone, crime statistics are based on a
> survey in the UK ( instead of relying on the police ).

Both. There are official statistics from the police and Crown Prosecution
Service about number of cases reported, investigated, charged and outcomes,
but there is _separately_ a survey, which gives important additional
information about whether or not people feel it worth reporting crime.

------
the-dude
12000 convicted criminals at large, about 3000 for sentences > 120 days.
Source, dutch: [http://justitie.eenvandaag.nl/tv-
items/69099/meer_zware_crim...](http://justitie.eenvandaag.nl/tv-
items/69099/meer_zware_criminelen_ontlopen_straf)

------
radicalbyte
The system here is a bit weird. We pay large sums of money to the dutch
equivalent of Al Capone then wonder why there are problems with organized
crime in Amsterdam.

~~~
verylittlemeat
I'm just curious, who is Al Capone in your example?

~~~
radicalbyte
Cees H, he's a (former?) drug lord. Guy had like $700m of his illicit profits
in cash. Which is a lot in Holland. For some reason the state paid him ~$2m in
compensation after he was released from jail. For being caught?

A minister recently resigned because they lied about it:

[http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/27/dutch-minister-resigns-
ov...](http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/27/dutch-minister-resigns-over-cash-
deal-with-convicted-drug-dealer)

~~~
verylittlemeat
interesting thanks for the reply I'm gonna read more about this

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jackreichert
They need a good old war on drugs; pair that with privatization and they can
rake in the money.

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xedarius
Maybe they should rent them out to the UK, we've got loads of spare prisoners.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Belgium already sends prisoners to the netherlands ( the project is over now
though)

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MiddleEndian
This sounds like a great thing to me. Is the sentiment expressed in the
article by MP Nine Kooiman that empty cells means more people should be
arrested a common one in The Netherlands?

~~~
redlum1
Not really, no. Crime rates have been steadily declining for years. The SP is
a minority party which never had a seat in government (even though they were
founded in the 70's). They are mostly worried about the job losses this would
cause.

~~~
ohyes
They could always dedicate themselves to committing more crime.

------
ryandrake
Unthinkable here in the USA. When prisons start emptying, just increase
sentence lengths to keep those beds full and corporate prison profits up.
EDIT: Also effective: simply increase enforcement. Since so many things are
illegal, police just need to fish more if they want to catch more.

~~~
nickff
Corporate prisons are a (small) minority; the strongest lobby in favor of
increased incarceration is from the prison guards' unions (which often supply
a majority of a state's prison staff).

