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The Netherlands Closes Prisons Because It Doesn't Have Enough Prisoners

158 points by Dowwie 10y ago

MiddleEndian 10y ago
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?
- grondilu 10y ago
  penultimate paragraph: > Closing prisons is good news in many ways. It means less money wasted, and signals that there is less crime. It also leaves empty facilities that can be repurposed, like an old jail in Colorado which was turned into a transitional housing facility for the homeless, with a focus on homeless veterans.
- redlum1 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    They could always dedicate themselves to committing more crime.
xxdarrenxx 10y ago
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.
- rileymat2 10y ago
  I have no idea what the the truth is, but it seems that members of most groups will anecdotally tell you they need more resources or support.
- icebraining 10y ago
  OTOH, the murder rate in 2015 was also the lowest in 20 years: http://nltimes.nl/2016/07/29/netherlands-murder-rate-20-year-low http://nltimes.nl/2016/07/29/netherlands-murder-rate-20-year...
  - bkor 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      What makes you think the percentage of questionable deaths has changed? If it hasn't, an all time low murder rate still stands.
      - bkor 10y ago
        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.
    - azernik 10y ago
      Murder is usually the one crime stat that can't be fudged - the saying in public policy circles is "you can't hide a body". You can downgrade an assault to a public order disturbance, you can just fail to log thefts, but when someone dies it gets into too many databases to remove from the stats. Most murders are not of the sort where it's unclear if it was murder at all. Someone's stabbed, beaten, shot, etc.
Avalaxy 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.
  - Avalaxy 10y ago
xedarius 10y ago
Maybe they should rent them out to the UK, we've got loads of spare prisoners.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- NicoJuicy 10y ago
  Belgium already sends prisoners to the netherlands ( the project is over now though)
- the-dude 10y ago
  Norwegian prisoners in The Netherlands already.
- za_creature 10y ago
  If they're renting them, I think Romania has a higher need at the moment :)
Kaotique 10y ago
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.
- vkou 10y ago
  > 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. How is this number different from other developed nations? > It's very common for judges to pass a community services punishment or an electronic ankle bracelet house arrest. If recidivism is low, how is that possibly not a positive?
  - Kaotique 10y ago
    I'm not saying it's a positive. But the fact that criminals are not put in jail but at home is a major contributor the emptiness of our jails. If people aren't in jail it doesn't mean there is no crime. Many crimes are committed by other Europeans and Dutch criminals who commit crimes in Germany across the border. For instance ramming or exploding ATMs in Germany by Dutch organised crime happens a lot. When looking at crime rates and amount of people in jail statistics per country are very unreliable and give the wrong impression when you should look at the big European picture.
    - zoner 10y ago
      Completely agree. I lived in Hungary, where the crime rate is relatively low compared to the whole Europe. But you can't actually go to an open market without securing your pockets. Now I live in Scotland, which amongst the highest crime rate countries in Europe, but it feels much safer to walk through Glasgow than to walk through Budapest. This is because every single small pickpocket is reported and usually caught. Not to mention crime definitions like "breach of peace", with cases like "shouting in public" or "pointed his finger on walker". Police would laugh on a reports about these in Hungary. I didn't like Amsterdam (or what I have seen of it) though, same insecure feeling.
ryandrake 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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).
the-dude 10y ago
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 10y ago
  > 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.
- edblarney 10y ago
  Yes, apparently, 'victimization surveys' are actually a more accurate way of measuring crime than using the stats released by the state. i.e. 'have you been robbed in the last month or last year' etc.
the-dude 10y ago
12000 convicted criminals at large, about 3000 for sentences > 120 days. Source, dutch: http://justitie.eenvandaag.nl/tv-items/69099/meer_zware_criminelen_ontlopen_straf http://justitie.eenvandaag.nl/tv-items/69099/meer_zware_crim...
jackreichert 10y ago
They need a good old war on drugs; pair that with privatization and they can rake in the money.
radicalbyte 10y ago
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 10y ago
  I'm just curious, who is Al Capone in your example?
  - radicalbyte 10y ago
    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-over-cash-deal-with-convicted-drug-dealer http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/27/dutch-minister-resigns-ov...
    - verylittlemeat 10y ago
      interesting thanks for the reply I'm gonna read more about this
PoarNeemn 10y ago
Because our police is too scared of the criminals, aka muslims

158 points by Dowwie 10y ago

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?

grondilu 10y ago
penultimate paragraph: > Closing prisons is good news in many ways. It means less money wasted, and signals that there is less crime. It also leaves empty facilities that can be repurposed, like an old jail in Colorado which was turned into a transitional housing facility for the homeless, with a focus on homeless veterans.
redlum1 10y ago
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 10y ago
  They could always dedicate themselves to committing more crime.

xxdarrenxx 10y ago

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.

rileymat2 10y ago
I have no idea what the the truth is, but it seems that members of most groups will anecdotally tell you they need more resources or support.
icebraining 10y ago
OTOH, the murder rate in 2015 was also the lowest in 20 years: http://nltimes.nl/2016/07/29/netherlands-murder-rate-20-year-low http://nltimes.nl/2016/07/29/netherlands-murder-rate-20-year...
- bkor 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    What makes you think the percentage of questionable deaths has changed? If it hasn't, an all time low murder rate still stands.
    - bkor 10y ago
      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.
  - azernik 10y ago
    Murder is usually the one crime stat that can't be fudged - the saying in public policy circles is "you can't hide a body". You can downgrade an assault to a public order disturbance, you can just fail to log thefts, but when someone dies it gets into too many databases to remove from the stats. Most murders are not of the sort where it's unclear if it was murder at all. Someone's stabbed, beaten, shot, etc.

Avalaxy 10y ago

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 10y ago
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 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
- Avalaxy 10y ago

xedarius 10y ago

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

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
NicoJuicy 10y ago
Belgium already sends prisoners to the netherlands ( the project is over now though)
the-dude 10y ago
Norwegian prisoners in The Netherlands already.
za_creature 10y ago
If they're renting them, I think Romania has a higher need at the moment :)

Kaotique 10y ago

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.

vkou 10y ago
> 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. How is this number different from other developed nations? > It's very common for judges to pass a community services punishment or an electronic ankle bracelet house arrest. If recidivism is low, how is that possibly not a positive?
- Kaotique 10y ago
  I'm not saying it's a positive. But the fact that criminals are not put in jail but at home is a major contributor the emptiness of our jails. If people aren't in jail it doesn't mean there is no crime. Many crimes are committed by other Europeans and Dutch criminals who commit crimes in Germany across the border. For instance ramming or exploding ATMs in Germany by Dutch organised crime happens a lot. When looking at crime rates and amount of people in jail statistics per country are very unreliable and give the wrong impression when you should look at the big European picture.
  - zoner 10y ago
    Completely agree. I lived in Hungary, where the crime rate is relatively low compared to the whole Europe. But you can't actually go to an open market without securing your pockets. Now I live in Scotland, which amongst the highest crime rate countries in Europe, but it feels much safer to walk through Glasgow than to walk through Budapest. This is because every single small pickpocket is reported and usually caught. Not to mention crime definitions like "breach of peace", with cases like "shouting in public" or "pointed his finger on walker". Police would laugh on a reports about these in Hungary. I didn't like Amsterdam (or what I have seen of it) though, same insecure feeling.

ryandrake 10y ago

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 10y ago
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).

the-dude 10y ago

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 10y ago
> 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.
edblarney 10y ago
Yes, apparently, 'victimization surveys' are actually a more accurate way of measuring crime than using the stats released by the state. i.e. 'have you been robbed in the last month or last year' etc.

the-dude 10y ago

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

jackreichert 10y ago

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

radicalbyte 10y ago

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 10y ago
I'm just curious, who is Al Capone in your example?
- radicalbyte 10y ago
  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-over-cash-deal-with-convicted-drug-dealer http://www.euronews.com/2017/01/27/dutch-minister-resigns-ov...
  - verylittlemeat 10y ago
    interesting thanks for the reply I'm gonna read more about this

PoarNeemn 10y ago

Because our police is too scared of the criminals, aka muslims