
Netherlands to close prisons for lack of criminals - soundsop
http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2246821.ece/Netherlands_to_close_prisons_for_lack_of_criminals
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jrockway
Clearly the prison lobby needs to have more things made illegal, like eating
certain plants, or writing software to allow blind people to read e-books.
They also need to make the sentences longer -- mandatory life in prison for
everything. Finaly, they need to lower the minimum wage and cut government
services, so more people are desperate enough to commit crimes.

That will solve their problems... it worked for the US, anyway.

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discojesus
_Finaly, they need to lower the minimum wage and cut government services, so
more people are desperate enough to commit crimes._

Or better yet institute an extremely high minimum wage, so that if you're an
unskilled laborer you remain unemployed because walmart greeters' labor isn't
worth $20 an hour just because the government said it is.

After all, it's not like working 0 hours a week at $20 an hour would make
someone as desperate as working 40 hours a week at $5 an hour...

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ahoyhere
discojesus, have you been to Europe much?

There are no "useless" jobs like Wal-Mart greeters here. There are no Wal-
Marts, or equivalents. The majority of people either run or are employed by
what the US would consider very tiny businesses indeed... and those businesses
are more critical to their community than the typical American business, by
far.

That hasn't been factored into your equation.

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vidarh
Well, Walmart owns ASDA, one of the dominant chains in the UK. No greeters,
though - what a bizarre concept.

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sho
Actually, coming from a country with a high minimum wage ($16/hr+), the idea
of a company paying some otherwise-unemployable warm body $5/hr to stand at
the door and do nothing all day except say hello to indifferent customers
seems bizarre to me - not to mention demeaning and perverse.

Our unemployment benefit is $6.20 an hour. I'd rather the poor guy stays at
home, works on his novel or something, and keeps his dignity.

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eru
Staying at home means watching TV for a lot of unemployed people. Getting any
job is often better.

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g2petter
Agreed. One of the problems with some of the welfare models is that it's often
very hard to get people out of them once they've adapted to being jobless and
doing nothing.

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sho
Well, yes, that's definitely an issue. But some people, you know, they're just
hopeless and they wouldn't do anything productive anyway. May as well have
them watching television, at least they won't go crazy with resentment after
being forced to be a freaking _greeter_ for 5 years.

And not all people will be like that. If just 1 in 5 people get bored, start
studying, turn their life around and start pulling $120k, their tax pays for
the other 4, plus the GDP per capita of the five quadruples.

It can and does happen. I know a guy who was an unemployed bum for a few
years, then got bored, spent 2 years teaching himself computer animation, then
got a job at a major animation studio (two of their productions playing in
cinemas now). He probably "paid back" that measly trickle of benefit payments
in 1 year.

I pretty much support an untested basic payment for all low income earners,
actually, because of that and other experiences. Just gives people a base, a
safety net. They might want to do nothing but watch TV, but they might want to
do something good, too. Just gives people the support they need. And because
of human nature, and general societal pressure to succeed, people do step up,
eventually.

(edited to remove potentially identifying personal information)

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gruseom
I wonder why the crime rate is falling so pronouncedly there. I also wonder
how (if at all) it's related to the ethnic/religious tensions surrounding the
immigrant population. That's a subject we were hearing about for a while, but
evidently it hasn't translated into much violence, at least not of the prison-
filling type.

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anigbrowl
No real war on drugs, a very strong public service ethic (they have by far the
most polite police I've encountered anywhere), and they have high expectations
of themselves as a society. They are quite conformist but more in the sense of
liking to be like each other, not punishment oriented towards people who are
different.

Anecdotal impressions of course, and superficial ones at that - I lived there
for a few years but I'd need pages to write about them. If you ever have a
chance to work/study/live there for a year, I'd say jump at the chance. It's
not heaven on earth by any means, but Dutch people and society are worth
getting to know.

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zackattack
It sounds like they live in a collectivist (as opposed to individualistic)
society.

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MaysonL
If you like mystery novels, read Willem van de Wettering's series of police
procedurals about a bunch of Amsterdam cops, and you'll come to a decidedly
different conclusion.

Also, Nicholas Freeling's van der Valk series, ditto.

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gruseom
I read a couple of Freeling's novels recently, including one of the van der
Valks. I kept wanting to like them better than I did; they were a bit too
extraneously literary and too weak on plot for my taste. I'll have to give
Wettering a try. Care to recommend one?

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MaysonL
I'm not sure: they're a series, and as such the effect is cumulative. Also, if
you found Freeling overly literary, van de Wettering's Zen sensibility (he
also wrote three nonfiction books on his experiences studying Zen around the
world [Japan and America in particular]).

I just noticed, reading the Wikipedia article, that he died last July 4.
Another one gone. Damn.

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wlievens
Actually they won't close their prisons, but lease them out to the Belgians.

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TweedHeads
"We don't need bigger jails, we need better schools"

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weegee
Feel really sorry for the employees of the prisons that are being shut.
Fortunately there is no shortage of prisoners in the USA and there is real job
growth potential in prison guard and other security related industry in the
USA.

