In the Netherlands, 19 prisons have been closed in the past few years, with more expected to close next year (2017), at a time when the UK and much of the world struggle with overcrowded prisons. How does this work?
The Dutch way is to look at the individual and try to remove the reason for the crime. If someone has a drug problem, they treat the addiction, if they are aggressive they provide anger management help, and debt counselling is given to those with money problems. Inmates must be willing to change but over the last ten years, the strategy has increasingly been effective.
Some persistent offenders (known as 'revolving-door criminals') are eventually given two-year sentences and tailor-made rehabilitation programmes. Fewer than 10% then return to prison after their release. (In England and Wales, and the US, roughly half those serving short sentences re-offend within two years; the figure is often higher for young adults).
In high-security prisons, offenders are helped to adapt to normal life on completion of their sentence. Large exercise yards include trees, picnic tables and volleyball nets; fresh air reduces stress levels for both inmates and staff. Inmates are allowed to walk unaccompanied to the library, clinic and canteen and they can learn to cook in the prison kitchen.
Dutch judges often use alternatives to prison such as community service orders, fines and electronic tagging of offenders, believing that it is better for people to stay in their jobs and with their families. Jail is increasingly used for those who are too dangerous to release or for vulnerable offenders who need the help available inside.
Some critics argue that the drop in recorded crime (25% over the past eight years) results from the closure of police stations, as a result of budget cuts, which makes crime harder to report, and low detection rates.
Some closed prisons have been converted into asylum reception centres, providing work for some former prison guards, while the desire to protect prison service jobs has resulted in some foreign inmates from Norway and Belgium serving their sentences in the Netherlands.
Source: The Dutch prison crisis: a shortage of prisoners, by Lucy Ash. BBC News item, 10 Nov. 2016
Source: Updated report. Why there are so few prisoners in the Netherlands, in the Guardian, 11 Dec. 2019
