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NETHERLANDS LOOKING TO IMPORT PRISONERS AS CRIME DRIES UP

May 27 2009

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Crime, it is said, is the definer of civilization. The system of jurisprudence that mankind has created is above all what marks us as more evolved than other species. Our ability to control our base desires and punish those
who decide to eschew that is something other animal species have not been able to accomplish. Crime is the test of that system and with each conviction we affirm what makes us distinct and what makes us human.

It is only fitting then that throughout the history of human civilization crime and punishment has been one of our biggest struggles. The awfulness of crime, the institutions of punishment, and the system of forgiveness have been at the heart of every society. As populations have increased so has crime, making the need for those systems become ever more important. In the Netherlands though that trend has reversed leaving prisons across the country more and more empty, leaving the country with a deficit in jurisprudence and society, which they are now importing from Belgium.

"Currently, there is detention capacity of some 14,000 cell places,” said Justice State Secretary Nebahat Albayrak. “while according to the estimates there is a need for about12,000 cells. This overcapacity is expected to continue for some years.”

In reaction to that deficit the country will be closing at least eight prisons and is currently looking at a deal to house prisoners from Belgium, which has been overrun by crime leaving their penal system overcrowded.

“Belgium has a significant problem with pedophiles which no doubt has caused a great deal of the issues they are seeing in the prison system. Child rapists generally receive harsh sentences and often are the victims of
crime from other inmates which inevitably increase their stay in prison causing a backlog,” said Scrape TV Crime analyst Willard Weston. “In the Netherlands nearly everything is legal which of course dramatically decreases the number of people going to jail. That gap can become very expensive because empty cells not only don’t earn, they sap dollars from the system and that negative earning system simply won’t maintain itself.”

Protest over the Belgian plan has already begun with some fearing that an import of foreign criminals will dilute the purity of the Dutch penal system.

“We are concerned that foreigners being imprisoned alongside natives will have a negative influence on the entire prison population. There is a risk that Dutch criminals will begin to take on attributes of these foreigners and become even more dangerous upon release,” said Gregor De Groot of Dutch Justice. “We are also concerned that they could undermine the fabric of our society. Criminals are the id of a society and we don’t want, simply put, Belgians telling us who we are. The reason we have decriminalized so many things is because we don’t like crime, not because we want to have room for foreign criminals.”

Many serious crimes such as murder and rape are still a crime in The Netherlands, for now.

“It’s unlikely that the very fabric of Dutch society will unravel with the introduction of a few foreign prisoners, especially since they will be in prison. They could also look at keeping them in isolation so as not to taint Dutch-born criminals,” continued Weston. “If the Dutch plan doesn’t work though I’m sure The United States would be more than willing to take them in as they have a much more mature and robust prison system than anyone else and are always willing to build new prisons.”

It’s not immediately clear what culture foreign prisoners would be expected to damage in The Netherlands.

Emil Uliya, International Correspondent

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