Huffington PostAs prison populations surge in the UK, with overcrowded cells and repeat offenders, the opposite is happening in the Netherlands.
The country is actually to close eight prisons because of a lack of criminals, the Dutch justice ministry has announced.
Declining crime rates in the Netherlands mean that although the country has the capacity for 14,000 prisoners, there are only 12,000 detainees, reported the nrc.nl.
The decrease is expected to continue, the ministry said, with Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak saying that natural redundancy and other measures should counter any forced lay-offs.
A report last year on prison overcrowding said that surging populations undermined the rehabilitation of prisoners and risked increasing reoffending in the future.
The Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA), which represents more than 60 organisations, called for the government to urgently limit “the unnecessary use of prison, ensuring it is reserved for serious, persistent and violent offenders for whom no alternative sanction is appropriate”.
It came after Chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick said the rising pressure on prisons from budget cuts and increasing numbers cannot go on indefinitely.
Maybe we can rent those Dutch prisons as temporary holding facilities for those in DC that “we the people” will be rounding up for treason trials. We’ll need plenty of space because there are soooo many of them we have to process-that is, the ones that aren’t killed when the war begins.
HaHaHaHaaaa LOL, yes Paula, wouldn`t that just drive them anti-drug politicions right up the wall to be locked up over there. 🙂 I love it when they say they have to close eight prisons due to lack of criminals. 🙂