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.
Whose police and security forces are also underfunded. Apart from the usual "hey, new idea: let's increase pensions!" you need to do to win in an ageing country, this is the big topic in the upcoming election.
Of course stats fluctuate and one always can find things that increase and that is reported. Context is usually left out. In 2015 it was increase of cars reported stolen (about half are recovered later). Here are the numbers:
2015: 35.941 (19.391)
2014: 34.653 (18.549)
2013: 35.696 (19.395)
2012: 34.176 (18.554)
2011: 35.564 (19.318)
Yes, there were more cars reported as stolen in 2015 than in 2013. But looking beyond the headlines there were even more recovered. Either funding of police increased, police became more effective or thieves more stupid.
Clearly there are areas where crime is on the rise. But then there are also areas where crime is falling. It is always easier to grow than making these adjustments. But in a not so fast growing society not all of these shifts are avoidable.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There are people saying that US needs harsher laws in the comment section of nearly every article on major US websites, so I would take that with a grain of salt.
Also - "measly" 12 years? I understand the upheaval if he got 3 or 6 years - but 12 is an issue?
12 years is normal in most northern European countries if I remember correctly, and I believe that its a good thing. We as a society need to take responsibility, and locking people up for their entire life is not a solution. There are people who might be too dangerous to have in general population, but i would argue that they have physiological issues which cant be trained away (think serial killers). But for most "normal" adults, locking them away for the rest of their life will not solve anything.
Could it not also mean, at least in part, that Dutch people are different? We have this word "culture" in our language, but people seem to think it is a mythical word.
So in what way is incarceration going to help what you've identified as the likely root cause of the problem?
Incarceration only works if prisoners are given adequate care in all ways - especially mental. Rehabilitation should be the purpose. The Dutch system seems to believe that works best outside the walls of a prison cell.
How many of these genuinely bad people were born that way? How many were victims of crime themselves growing up? I'd hazard a guess that a large percentage of so-called "hardened criminals" developed their cynicism due to the climate of our atomized, uncaring society.
Well, there are a lot of people who try drugs, even very hard drugs, and can go on without getting hooked. But addicts tend to get hooked because of a desire to escape themselves. I can't put my finger on it exactly, or point to a scientific study unfortunately, but addicts that I have met have been very self-centered and unpleasant people.
Is there really such a thing as a "bad person"? Sure, there are people whose proclivities, inborn or otherwise, make them unsuitable to be freely among the public, but I can't think of anyone who I couldn't imagine following a different, "positive" path.
The people that are looking for a talented A-tier lawyer are likely the ones that are the most guilty. These guys and gals exhibit Dark Triad[0] tendencies far more than the average labor/service-class defendant does.
If you're a mediocre defense lawyer on public defender detail, you'd probably have a much different perspective on criminals. The poor can't afford lawyers, guilty or innocent.
Sounds like a description of many politicians. Or businesman. What is needed is a system that, game theoretically, shows those people that you can be a complete asshole as long as you are within certain rules of the law. Then you don't get locked up and that's the deal.
Not parent, but also from a neighbouring country. I think as long as the landlord is not from the private sector, and there are is no language barrier for prisoners and staff, I see no reason why not to share all kinds of resources this way within the EU.
Belgium does this for Luxembourg all the time, Germany and France mostly do it symbolically (joined military forces etc.). Would like to see more of this, especially when there are monetary benefits for both sides.
and there are is no language barrier for prisoners and staff
In the case of Belgium and The Netherlands, there probably is. A sizable minority of Belgians speak French, not Dutch, and due to poorer economic prospects they might also make up more than half the prison population.
But I assume that for people arrested for crimes in the Dutch speaking part, being jailed by someone you can't understand is Your Own Damn Fault. I mean, if they arrest Eastern Europeans then what are they going to do? Get prison wards to learn a bunch of Slav/Russian dialects?
"34. At the time of the 2009 periodic visit, the Belgian authorities had stated that, in principle, French-speaking prisoners were not considered for transfer to Tilburg Prison. Two years later, it has to be said that almost 20% of the prisoners - Belgian or foreign - in Tilburg are French speakers. Consequently, a not inconsiderable proportion of the prison's inmates find it difficult to communicate on a day-to-day basis with the Dutch staff, most of whom speak little or no French. The delegation also noted that the instructions on what to do in the event of fire breaking out, displayed in the cells, appear in Dutch, Arabic, Turkish and English, but not in French. Such communication difficulties are not without significant consequences during official administrative procedures, particularly of a disciplinary (see paragraph 36) or medical nature. The delegation took note of the efforts made by the Dutch prison staff to improve their knowledge of French. However, the CPT invites the authorities to limit as far as possible the transfer of French-speaking prisoners to Tilburg Prison. "
highlights that the French speakers are out of luck although reasonable efforts are done for them.
Just guessing, but if the reputation of Belgian prisons is true, most prisoner would be prefer to sit in a Dutch prison, even if they don't understand anybody around them.
I think they'd prefer an alternative punishment (because that's what they get if there's no room in Belgium). IIRC there was protest against the transfers.
> But I assume that for people arrested for crimes in the Dutch speaking part, being jailed by someone you can't understand is Your Own Damn Fault. I mean, if they arrest Eastern Europeans then what are they going to do? Get prison wards to learn a bunch of Slav/Russian dialects?
True, did not think about that. Was more thinking about natives speaking one of the native languages.
If I would get arrested anywhere in the world, I would want my country to try everything to get me back home and be prosecuted there. If I would get arrested at home, I would want the prison staff to speak the official language of my country.
Maybe there is an opportunity here to make Dutch the official language of prisons and in consequence the official language of crime :D
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.
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.
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.
> 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 ?
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.
> 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.
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.
"However, what the system does not take into account is that some people are just broken beyond any hope of ever being fixed"
That's why there also is involuntary commitment (TBS), where many people are in so-called "long stay" for decades, often until death, but that has been ruled against the declaration of human rights, so there is a possibility of getting released (which, afaik, has never been granted yet)
AFAIK, it does not helps. He will work for few days, maybe months, then will steal something. I read quite few anecdotes about such people from USSR. After USSR was broke, they were able to leave country and land in USA, Germany, Israel, etc., but their mental barrier to not steal was broken in USSR, so even when they got a job with 1000x salary, they are still steal something, get cough, fired or jailed, and then returned back to Russia.
There are two goals: Punishment and Prevention (also deterrence and rehabilitation, but I'm ignoring those).
For child molesters and murder, the goal is punishment, and then it's a specific amount of years which are determined as an appropriate punishment.
But here the goal is prevention.
The two categories can not be compared to each other because they are not the same. They have different goals, target different people, and have different time frames.
They just both happen to be implemented via jail which leads you to compare them, but it doesn't have to be that way - for example punishment can be corporal, and prevention can theoretically be done other ways (none practical at the moment, but things like an AI that watches behavior and stops the person or sounds an alarm may be possible in the future).
>There are two goals: Punishment and Prevention (also deterrence and rehabilitation, but I'm ignoring those).
Well there's your problem, those are usually the goals of justice systems in places like the US. The entire point of this artical that those aren't the goals for the dutch
The example at hand was an example of a clear failure of rehabilitation. And when that happened the Dutch had no legal ability (or perhaps desire) to deal with it.
Is that the cost or the price? Security + healthcare amount to two-thirds - seems like that's the bit where you'd hide the profit for private enterprises?
This doesn't sound unthinkable in other countries. I'm from Norway, where the maximum prison sentence is 21 years, with a third of that often being deducted for good behavior, leaving 14 years.
I live in Norway, though not Norwegian. From what I can tell it already generates a lot of debate. The sentencing seems to generate debate when someone does any sort of heinous crime. At the same time, folks seem rather proud of the system itself.
And I think folks should be. I'm American, the land of petty imprisonments and punishments lasting long after prison time is served. The system here seems to produce much better outcomes for both the people imprisoned and the community around them.
I'm sure the families of the victims would vastly prefer not to be in this situation in the first place, over getting some petty revenge. That's why the priority must be to bring down the overall number of vitims.
Should a killer get released after 14 years though, after "good behavior"? If we're talking about premeditated murder, you can be pretty sure you're dealing with an individual who doesn't have good behavior.
Second, 14 (or 21) years for murder, really? A life isn't worth a lot anymore these days..
Prison sentences in the Netherlands for aren't imposed as punishment alone, not even mostly. They are primarily tools of prevention (including the prevention of recidivism). If a convicted criminal is no longer considered to be a threat to society what's the point of keeping them locked up? If longer sentences (longer than whatever they are) have not shown to reduce the crime rate through deterrent, why impose them?
I feel like murder (or most major crimes really) is a very special case. I'd prefer a system where the default is a life sentence (a lifetime for a life feels just) but the option to release after n years if relatives/family of the victim agree to it.
It's probably very impractical but would appeal most to my personal understanding of justice.
One of the reasons we have a justice system instead of revenge and vendettas is that we hope to have progressed a bit past "a life for a life". That is also why we don't let the victims have influence over their release.
As far as I'm concerned, there is indeed a punishment/revenge factor also in our current justice system, besides rehabilitation and keeping the streets safe from wrongdoers. That could lead to minimum sentences, especially for murder and even more so when it's premeditated. In general, I find that judges (in the Netherlands) strike an okay balance.
I think it can very much be both. But I feel victims are underrepresented in the rehabilitation discussion. My inner moral compass says they should be involved and it shouldn't all be up to review boards. I'm fully aware that I have a somewhat naive worldview though (I'd expect most victims to understand if someone was rehabilitated and be willing to forgive)
Unlike in most other European countries, Dutch law allows for life imprisonment without parole, from which only a royal pardon can save you. Since 1970, 43 people have been convicted, 2 of whom were eventually pardoned, both because of terminal illness. A quick glance through the recent list of convictions[1] shows that most life sentences were imposed in cases of multiple homicide, homicide for financial gain and homicide related to organized crime.
In addition, convicts may be involuntarily committed when their sentence is over (and often before). This is aimed at rehabilitation, but can be extended indefinitely.
OK, thank you. So I will not tell anybody that I did that by request of someone else, then serve 12 years and will be free and with money, unless my mother will come in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader (in English).
It's just example. People are killing people for way smaller reasons. My price is very high, isn't?
How much people live in Dutch? If Russians will send one killer for every key men in country, country will be their in just 12 years, while they lose nothing, because Dutch prison is much much more comfortable than a flat in Rostov. I see that in Ukraine right now.
In the Netherlands, 20 years (with early release after 13-14 years) used to be the maximum sentence, apart from life sentence, which actually used to be really for life. Parole is possible, but seldom used; release for good behaviour (after a certain minimum number of years) was not possible at all. The European Court for Human Rights actually recently forced us to implement an early release possibility. I think a few years ago we also got a 30 year option (with early release after 20), because judges weren't willing to impose a life sentence due to the aforementioned reason.
Also, 14/21 years is about 20-25% of one's life. I think that's quite a lot, really.
Seems you're the one who isn't giving much value to the prisoner's life here.
If rehabilitation can't be accomplished in 14 years, it won't be accomplished in 20 or 30 either so what's the point of keeping them inside an arbitrary number of years after that?
edit: I just noticed you referred to imprisonment as punishment on another thread; that's where we differ in belief.
It is, I'm not saying it's not. But the other person is dead and gone forever? Imagine if someone killed your wife/child/brother/mother/etc. Does that seem like a correct punishment?
I'm not talking about accidents (e.g. a car crash), but premeditated murder? I personally think the length of that punishment is not in line with the crime. But hey, I'm getting downvoted to hell, so I guess most people think it is.
Prison isn't meant as a punishment in Norway, it is for rehabilitation of the person. People would rather they helped even the worst of people become members of society than let them rot in a cell for "punishment".
Did being sent to the naughty step when you were a kid solve your behavior or was it becoming a better person that solved it?
> Did being sent to the naughty step when you were a kid solve your behavior or was it becoming a better person that solved it?
You can't really compare that though. In 99% of the cases, I agree with what you say and with that line of thought. I just don't when it comes to murder. To me, that seems like the worst of all possible crimes.
> I personally think the length of that punishment is not in line with the crime. But hey, I'm getting downvoted to hell, so I guess most people think it is.
You're getting downvoted because you treat imprisonment as vengeance, as paying back a debt that is owed to the victim's family.
The more reasonable approach is to use imprisonment as a tool which prevents future crimes by the perpetrator and other potential criminals (through rehabilitation and deterrence). This yields better results and higher benefits to society as a whole, even if it might not be as emotionally satisfying to the victim's family.
I agree that if we can fix the underlying problems causing crime using rehabilitation then we should. There is no question that we have a problem with repeat offender criminals in places like the United States where prison is solely punishment. With that being said, I think it's important both from a moral standpoint (the state exists to protect individuals and their freedoms in my opinion) and also a practical law and order standpoint that victims feel the state has made them whole after a crime is perpetrated against them. Otherwise you increase the probability of extra judicial retaliations.
For most crimes, I definitely agree that imprisonment should be a tool to prevent further crime. In most cases, genuinely punishing someone for (stupid) mistakes (s)he has made is unproductive for society. But murder seems like a very specific situation (to me at least) where someone has crossed the line. Can one really come back from murder?
Would you be comfortable spending time with someone you know who has cold-bloodedly killed another human being? I know I wouldn't. And I'm generally a person who is pretty open about most things.
We pay people to go murder other people and are fine with it. We call them soldiers and sometimes policemen too. Turns out that most people who kill someone else are able to come back more often than not well enough to be able to live in society, although PTSD is a well-known consequence for it.
> Imagine if someone killed your wife/child/brother/mother/etc. Does that seem like a correct punishment?
Does that matter at all? I mean - no matter the punishment, the victim is dead, and nothing will bring them back.
So yes, lock them up: as minor deterrent (penal codes aren't very effective in that regard, if not even the death penalty prevents murder); to protect society; to give some standardized environment to hopefully correct the perpetrator so that they'll rediscover their humanity; and maybe for some sort of punishment (but that's really an afterthought, because as said, what does it matter?).
But (I hope) I'd refuse to let them also take my humanity (in addition to the life they took).
But the other person is dead regardless of the length of your sentence. No matter how harsh the punishment, he's not coming back. So I don't get that argument.
In Germany they solve a lot more cases without using more police force. I don't care about short sentences or helping prisoners after they went to prison, that's probably a good thing. But they need to be arrested and convicted first if they do something, not get away with it.
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.
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.
That would be interesting. AA and NA meetings have undeniably helped a lot of people break addictions and turn their lives around. If a criminal justice system is to improve people's lives and many of these prisoners are in for drug and alcohol related reasons, it only feels logical to me that at the very least, these meetings should be an option.
Come to think of it, if it worked out, I could see non-prisoners that feel they need help or could help others out going. While NA and AA meetings have the appeal of almost always being done in private, inconspicuous locations, I'm sure that at least a few people might still attend meetings held in a hypothetical YMCA-prison. It could help with situations like these where there is a lot of extra room in the prison. This might be best suited to drug rehab facilities, but I think that the idea could work anywhere with a receptive environment. It would probably be hard to give a prison of a good image though.
According to comments here, it seems like similar systems already exist in some countries. If this is true, how effective have they been?
In the Netherlands there are also institutions for those who committed crimes but were held less responsible because of mental illness. To protect society and to treat them. Not quite as stict as prison, but they don't have freedom and are often violent.
They can sometimes have social contact with the outside world, e.g. by having a football or chess team that plays in the league. Only home matches of course.
I played chess against some of these people inside once, you do keep wondering what they did to be there...
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) 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.
According to 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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Cannabis is technically a white-listed illegal substance, for which the possession, consumption, and sale is legal up to certain thresholds. Amusingly, the sellers require a license and are not supposed to purchase stock to sell. Viz. The cannabis being sold is appearing out of thin air!
> Amusingly, the sellers require a license and are not supposed to purchase stock to sell.
Correct, it's a schizophrenic situation that pro-legalization and liberal parties have been trying to solve for a while.
However, since 2002 more conservative, christian and/or centre-right parties have been ruling who ideally want to criminalize again so it's not getting solved any time soon.
You don't really need point 3. It's implicit in point 2, because private prisons will allocate funds to lobbyists in pursuit of regulatory capture, resulting in 3.
> 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".
I remember reading somewhere that Iceland had to close prisons due to lack of prisoners. They get a few convicts per year and have to send them abroad to prisons abroad.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
> 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.
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..
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.
Might not sound great on a newspaper headline, "refugees being housed in prison" similar to how I saw something about refugees in Germany being housed in some former concentration camp or SS barrack or something like that. Assuming it's a re-purposed, former prison that might not be a terrible idea. If you're fleeing possible death, imprisonment, war, etc. I don't see why it would be terrible to have some sort of "Refugee Integration Center". Spend a month there, get some cursory education on the customs and expectation in society, resources for assistance and such. This could create or preserve jobs and probably lead to better outcomes for incoming refugees coming from vastly different cultural backgrounds.
this is the kind of thing I was thinking of. it might be the best solution, except for the connotations. but just letting them learn about the culture and knowing their whereabouts and figuring out if they have any criminal tendencies in a controlled environment should be beneficial for everyone.
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.
Low solved crimes rates are indeed a problem if that's true (it seems to be, but I'm not sure), but short sentences don't have to be a problem if they're effective at stopping inmates from returning to crime.
The goal should not be to lock people up, the goal should be to prevent crime.
People expect retail workers to be nice to folk during and after they are "foul-mouthing them in their face." If we expect this from the folks near the bottom of the chain, why should we not expect this from the police?
Being an ill-tempered individual doesn't make one a criminal. Nor should it.
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.
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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.
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Thanks for the down votes without knowing the facts.
There are many sources, this is one of the more recent:
I've lived in the Netherlands for over 20 years in 5 different cities (in a small town like Geldermalsen as well as Amsterdam) and I have never experienced anything like that..
In all the places I've lived I (and everyone around me) always felt extremely safe.
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EDIT: those are some weird sources:
- first link is a dutch website called "Germany institute". It doesn't say anything about 40% non solvency (or 80% solvency in Germany).
- second link talks about how neighbourhood watches have grown five fold, to a whapping 661 watches over 17 million people.
- third link is a belgium website talking about an extreme right winged finnish watch that has been to the netherlands one time.
But why don't you post some counter information? Or inform yourself while not finding any information that supports your opinion at all.
> second link talks about how neighbourhood watches have grown five fold, to a whapping 661 watches over 17 million people.
You can try to ridicule it but it's not going to change the fact that it's getting really big. Because those watches are the official ones that are registered, not some angry dads from the neighbourhood united in a WhatsApp group.
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Not sure why I can't reply to you. But we're not talking about corruption or general safety. We're talking about the police giving you a cold shoulder when something does happen.
> Police response and capabilities are comparable to other Western European countries. Professionalism and competence are high, and corruption and tolerance of corruption are low.
> Crime Rating: Low
> Although rare, violent crime does happen
> travel by road is relatively safe in comparison to some other European countries
Dutch citizen here, this is bullshit. Neighbourhood watches using WhatsApp has nothing to do with a lack of police force, it's simply an "add-on" so neighbours can report suspicious behaviour to others.
> Within ten years these groups will probably grow into armed and organised right-wing groups.
You miss the part where we have very strict gun ownership rules, and very few have guns.
> Thanks for the down votes without knowing the facts.
You are being downvoted because what you provide aren't facts. You linked to a news article about neighbourhood watches, an article about a group of extremists/xenophobes, and an article about Dutch vs German law. None of this proves that The Netherlands is the a "dangerous" country where citizens take matters into their own hands, etc.
That case is extremely cloudy. There is no way to know what actually happened.
But witnesses range from unreasonably in favor of the shooter: "Trayvon was reaching for a gun after be loud and beligerent and was shot in clear self defense", all the way to unreasonably in favor of the shot: "Trayvon was shot in cold blood and broad daylight by a bigot and a the shooter was let free because of institutional racism".
To claim you know what happened is extremely showing of your lack of understanding of the situation or of your implicit bias.
It's not that your sources are nonsense, you're just drawing an unfounded conclusion from them.
The Whatsapp patrol described in the article is completely different from the goon squad you're implying it is. It's mainly an early detection system, people would call the police as soon as they see something happening.
I would down vote you if I could, because you are being very disingenuous. I have never lived anywhere as safe as Holland, backed up both by statistics and the general atmosphere.
Just to be clear, what percentage of neighbourhood's have WhatApp patrols? I bet it's under 0.1%.
If you feel unsafe in Holland you should be terrified to live in the US:
Maybe it would be a good moment to reflect on yourself and analyse why the things I say make you angry. It's all backed up by data and facts. If you would take time to read the source (sorry if you can't read Dutch: the registered number of groups was 661, which is 40% of all municipalities) you wouldn't respond like that. The NRC is a very reliable (but a bit progressive liberal) newspaper.
I don't care about the US. This story is about The Netherlands and the "miracle" of empty prisons. I don't say you shouldn't feel safe, but I'm telling that things don't seem to be improving at least.
I'm reading a story about Dutch prisons with a lot of halleluja stories about how great the Dutch government is handling things, while the actual chance of getting convicted if you do something is getting lower every year together with the fact that fewer people actually report crimes. That also leads to less people in prison, or not?
I don't mind that people get second chances and help after they were convicted for their crimes, but they are simply not getting arrested in the first place.
Why would I compare The Netherlands to a country that's completely different like the US? That would make no sense. Germany is a very similar country.
> And you have evidence that the crime rate is increasing?
I never said that?
Self-reliance in solving or preventing crimes is increasing.
> We blijven nog even in Münster en Utrecht. Vooral bij geweldscriminaliteit is het contrast pijnlijk: een Nederlandse opheldering van 37 procent tegen een Duitse van 82 procent.
"A bit more about Münster and Utrecht (1). The contrast is especially painful when we compare violent crimes: the Dutch solve 37% while the Germans solve 82%"
Explain that to somebody that got beat up in the streets after a night out for no reason at all. That the police is not doing anything at all to solve it.
1) two cities that are roughly the same size and demographic, so more comparable
Just a small/random additional tidbit...I'd guess that Münster is probably one of the cities in Germany with the most interest in good police work from a PR point of view because the German police university (Deutsche Hochschule der Polizei) is located there :)
This might give some insight as to where the 40% comes from (the image shows numbers up to 40%, interestingly) but it's an aggregate number, not violent crimes per se (it's in Dutch but the infographic is about the numbers anyway):
Those groups are a big trend in places with more tight-knit communities. Amsterdam is quite individualistic and in some ways the city got cleaned up quite a bit compared to the 80s when it was full of heroin junkies. I think the free heroin plan is one of the best things ever.
In rural areas people experience more crime than before and the police is not that willing to solve cases.
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.
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.
I have seen the signs for these WhatsApp groups in my own neighbourhood, but I think you're mischaracterizing them. These groups (and the signs that come with them) have existed for decades: "Attentie, buurtpreventie". They're just embracing modern technology. If their formation inevitably lead to armed militias roaming the streets, then we would've seen them by now.
Groups like these crossing the line would be a result of other changes in Dutch society.
Not sure what it's like in other cities, but Amsterdam is pretty safe in my experience. Some parts of Amsterdam had a pretty bad reputation 15 years ago, but that too seems to be a lot less these days.
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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.