Earlier this yr, earlier than he turned the UK justice minister, James Timpson described how Britain ought to comply with the Dutch instance of delicate sentencing to assist clear up the prisons disaster.
“They’ve shut half their prisons not as a result of individuals are much less naughty in Holland,” he informed Channel 4. “It’s as a result of they’ve a special means of sentencing, which is neighborhood sentencing so individuals can keep at house, maintain their jobs, maintain their properties, maintain studying their youngsters bedtime tales, and it means they’re far much less prone to commit crime once more. A custodial sentence shouldn’t be all the time the best factor.”
However within the Netherlands, these feedback evoked shock in some quarters, underlining that there are not any straightforward options.
The nation has skilled an escalation in drug-related crime and has a brand new rightwing authorities eager to be seen as onerous on legislation and order.
General crime dropped prior to now decade however figures such because the Rotterdam mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, are sounding the alarm a couple of wave of violent, drug-related criminality.
A lawyer, journalist and the brother of a crown witness have been murdered in reference to a gangland trial. Justice ministers have talked a couple of breakdown in legislation and order and introduced a clampdown on “narcoterrorism” and increased sentences.
This yr there have been studies and parliamentary questions on overcrowded prisons. The most recent figures from the WODC, the justice ministry’s analysis and information centre, present the variety of individuals being jailed trended downwards from 2014 to 2020 however since then has risen.
Amber van der Toorn, a spokesperson for the Rechtspraak judicial system, stated any suggestion that the Dutch punish much less was incorrect: “There may be usually a picture that Dutch judges give low sentences and that we sit on the facet of prevention, however if you happen to have a look at worldwide analysis, it’s actually not the case that we give much less excessive jail sentences within the Netherlands.”
Sven Brinkhoff, a professor in prison legislation on the College of Amsterdam, stated the fact was extra complicated than Timpson thought.
“On the one hand, we see that the numbers of jail sentences are the truth is rising once more,” he stated. “We additionally see a agency legislation and order ‘tone of voice’ from the ministry of justice, advocating increased sentences. Then again we do see one other motion … the place there may be extra room for mediation, restorative justice and taking a look at different methods of punishment like neighborhood service.”
Different criminologists consider – alongside life sentences for drug-related murders – that judges favour non-custodial sentences for sure misdemeanours.
Jan van Dijk, an emeritus professor of criminology at Tilburg College, who has studied world crime patterns from 2006 to 2019, believes the rise in Dutch imprisonments was a blip in a long-term pattern. “[Timpson] is totally proper to say we punish much less by incarceration: it was the case 40 years in the past, then the prisoner price grew so much however within the final 20 years it plummeted to lower than half of the British price,” he stated.
“For a lot of crimes the place you get a jail sentence in Nice Britain, within the Netherlands you get neighborhood service, and tips from the general public prosecution give desire to this. The reason being that Dutch analysis has proven that folks with a brief jail sentence solely worsen, so the recidivism price is increased with a brief jail sentence than with a neighborhood service order.”
The Dutch justice ministry confused to the Guardian that judges, who rule on instances and provides sentence, function independently. “Our legal guidelines give the judges the likelihood to offer neighborhood sentences and conditional sentences, however they apply these sentences the place they see match,” stated a spokesperson, Frerick Althof.
David Downes, a London College of Economics professor who in contrast the Dutch and British techniques in a 1988 examine, stated the Dutch method would nonetheless be a “higher different”.
“The prison drug market looms ever bigger however that primarily displays the significance of the Netherlands as an entrepot nation somewhat than the ‘comfortable contact’ in sentencing,” he stated. “The philosophy of sentencing stays remarkably anti-penal regardless of rising strikes to the intense proper politically. It’s to be hoped that Dutch tolerance survives.”
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