Netherlands Prisons Closing For Lack Of Criminals

NRC:

The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.

Read the whole story: NRC

Comments

[TheBlackCat]

06:14 PM on 05/29/2009

Here's a little taste of what life is like in the Netherlands compared to America.

I went to a rave in the Dutch city of Utrecht a few years ago. When we got outside the venue at about 8am the next morning (it was a ten hour rave) I could see cop cars...AND THE COPS WERE DANCING!! They had one of the squad car doors open blaring techno music, and all the cops were dancing around (while still keeping an eye on the departing crowd to make sure we remained orderly). As people would pass by them, they would wave and say "We hope you had a good time partying!"

It was QUITE different than what I am used to.

[HekmabaJuzimax]

01:24 PM on 05/29/2009

A jail cell becomes empty when police refuse to look for criminals.

[aspelling]

12:11 PM on 05/29/2009

If Netherland would privatize prisons they would be full with the criminals through the laws that would help private prison owners to fill them. Or they would import judges from PA

[Macready]

11:39 AM on 05/29/2009

Good for the Netherlands . . I wonder how much the decriminalisation of marajuana helped these statistics ..

[Scott1560]

01:29 PM on 05/29/2009

Try immigration..............If you can't contribute to the Dutch society, can't assimilate into the society, can't speak Dutch, you don't get in.

Small countries can have a welfare state, can have socialism, but it doesn't work when you let everyone else in.

Good luck to those who love their system and want to more there. Odds are, they don't want you and won't let you in.

[RoloTomassi]

02:04 PM on 05/29/2009

"Small countries can have a welfare state, can have socialism, but it doesn't work when you let everyone else in."

So I assume your point is that such would never work in the US...is that correct?

Well of course, and we learned that fact during the great US socialist experiment of 19...ah...wait; we have quite a few "socialist" features in our local governments [one can only suppose that there is a USofA Only law of physics that governs such limits], and yet individuals such as you can always manage to shoot holes in the concept, despite the fact that you have no foundation of fact whatsoever to base your assertions on. No significant attempt at socialist federal government or federal government with significant socialist features has ever been tried here in the US, despite the fact that such works very well in other developed countries in Europe.

Which, to my mind, clearly illustrates that you don't have any clue what you are talking about; like a near mindless parrot, you simply repeat the BS you've been taught to spew on command.

[Blago]

03:47 PM on 05/29/2009

Scott, the Netherlands is part of the Schengen treaty, meaning that they have open borders and people from all over Europe can move freely between those nations, work and live wherever they want to. What is your point?
And tell me, how is telling lies for what you think is a good cause different from telling lies in general, which your mother told you not to do?

[Flying Dutchman]

07:12 AM on 05/29/2009

1. In previous years a bigger percentage of criminals got a labor sentence, those people did not need a jail cell.
2. The building of extra cells was a right wing project, those people are out of power now, the urge to build new cells isn't that big anymore.
3. The rate of recidivism in the Netherlands is way lower than the US (the "once a criminal always a criminal" mantra isn't that popular here)
4. The gap between poor and rich isn't that big as in the US, I believe one of the biggest factors causing crime.
5. People with mental problems don't get jailed, but are treated in a mental clinic. We name it TBS (it means something like "the federal state has the right to hold and treat someone with a mental disease, until the person in cured or dead")
6. We don't tend to criminalize everything white christians can't handle. Science and reason dictate policies on crime. not fear and emotions (of course there are politicians who are afraid of everything, but they are a minority).

There is an other difference though. In Dutch culture revenge and violence are not that embedded as in US culture. Laws are not based on revenge, hate, fear and humiliation. Crime laws are based on the effect they have on the behavior of a criminal. Example; getting jailed for smoking pot and get out as a violent person is not a helpful way of sentencing, it only makes things worse.

[ifihadahammer]

01:39 PM on 05/29/2009

Amen, amen and amen, Dutchman!

[RoloTomassi]

01:50 PM on 05/29/2009

Well then, you post has enlightened me greatly; clearly, the US can NEVER adopt such a model, as it takes away the majority of the primary tools--fears, insecurities, neuroses--that corporatists employ to keep us spinning in our hamster cages.

We hold our peculiarly American fears, fetishes & neuroses sacred, and we cannot permit such to be amended...much like our constitution.

[Hdaryl01]

02:22 AM on 05/29/2009

Shocking! Holland could prevent this outrage if it criminalized and persecuted, I mean prosecuted more people for more things.........

[pepa]

06:46 PM on 05/28/2009

Funny what happens when you decriminalize drug addiction. They're smarter, eat better and are healthier too. God I hate them!

[Scott1560]

02:56 PM on 05/29/2009

And they close their borders!

[RTIII]

05:52 PM on 05/28/2009

...I wonder how long it has been since they outlawed lead in gasoline?

(Lead from gasoline has been proven to have contributed to violent crime.)
.

[KarateKid]

05:16 PM on 05/28/2009

Pot is legal, prostitution is legal, both are controlled, and the police (Polite in Dutch, some coincidence, isn't it?) don't hassle you if you maintain and behave. They don't lay guilt trips on anyone, and live and let live is the rule, as long as you respect others. But, it's easier to do in a small country.

[RoloTomassi]

03:51 PM on 05/28/2009

This is the terrible consequences of:

1) NOT having a for-profit privatized prison system, and

2) NOT throwing people in jail for possessing drugs.

OH THE SHAME! HOW CAN THEY LIVE WITH THEMSELVES?!?!?

[Eusebio]

03:38 PM on 05/28/2009

Da more people smoke herb, da more Babylon fall, mah brethren!

[netzwerg]

01:19 PM on 05/28/2009

Nice dutch BMW Police Car.

[netzwerg]

01:23 PM on 05/28/2009

are those 19-inch rims?

[Taxi]

01:13 PM on 05/28/2009

Truth is stranger than fiction.

[totaldisbelief]

12:45 PM on 05/28/2009

somebody needs to go and study their methods. ASAP.

[mazzetta]

02:24 PM on 05/28/2009

shhhh

don't you know Holland is "socialist" and its citizens aren't allowed to carry guns freely while are allowed to smoke marijuana freely?

think what a nightmare, lmao...

[Hdaryl01]

02:25 AM on 05/29/2009

Or that the drinking age for strong beer is 16 (loosely enforced)........and yet, the world doesn't end in a fire ball of anarchy..............and death.......

[Scott1560]

08:30 AM on 05/29/2009

http://www.rferl.org/content/Article/1067418.html

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/8-16-2002-24602.asp

[KCFreedom]

12:25 PM on 05/28/2009

The Prison Industrial Complex will never let this happen in the U.S.

[Scott1560]

02:58 PM on 05/29/2009

Nor will the liberal machine w/an open border policy.

Want to be more like the Netherlands? Close the borders!