The story behind the Netherlands' empty prisons

The US, China, Turkey and Brazil are just some of the countries that are putting more and more people behind bars. But in the Netherlands, it's a different story. Some empty prisons there have now been re-purposed as hotels or cultural centers.

But what's the reason for the country's falling prison population? And is it really the success story it appears to be? DW has taken a closer look at some of the studies and statistics.

Beating the global trend

A study conducted by the Universities of Leiden (Netherlands) and Portsmouth (UK) found that the number of people in prison in the Netherlands fell from 94 per 100,000 citizens to 51 per 100,000 between 2005 and 2016.

Although the downward trend has not continued since, figures from Eurostat suggest that the imprisonment rate has stabilized at this low level. In 2021 and 2022 it was at 54 per 100,000.

That makes the Netherlands one of the few countries that have seen their prison populations decline. Data platform World Prison Brief (WPB) has identified a similar trend in Germany, Liechtenstein, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, and the Baltic states.

Only one country has seen its rate of incarceration fall more dramatically than the Netherlands, and that's Russia, where WPB statistics point to a 59% decrease since 2000. But the reason for that appears to be military: many prisoners have been released to serve as soldiers in the war against Ukraine.

Elsewhere in the world, though, the overall trend is for an ever-growing prison population, with the numbers exploding in many countries. Since 2000, prisoner numbers have surged by 224% in South America, by 141% in Asia and by 84% in Oceania.

Why are numbers so low?

There are a number of different aspects to consider when examining the fall in the number of prisoners in the Netherlands, including sentencing policy in the courts, the overall crime rate, the work of the judicial authorities, the costs of incarceration and resocialization, and the overall legal situation.

The number of people receiving custodial sentences from the courts has fallen significantly in the Netherlands. In 2005, Dutch courts imposed prison sentences on some 8,305 convicted criminals. Ten years later, only 4,540 offenders were sent to jail. Studies show that the decrease in custodial sentences was seen across the full spectrum of criminal activities.

Crimes against property saw a 44% decrease in prison sentences, violent crime and sexual crime saw imprisonment rates fall by 39%, and for drug-related crimes the drop was as much as 49%. The number of people sent to jail for failing to pay a court-imposed fine decreased by 38%.

The Netherlands also has an unusually low average length of custodial sentence. The criminologists at the University of Leiden noted in their study that half of all those sent to prison there were released again within one month.

By contrast, according to a report by the University of Lausanne that looked at prisoner rates across the 46 members of the European Council, just 5.2% of inmates spend less than six months in jail, and some 21.3% serve between 12 months and three years.

Lower rates of remand and falling crime rate

Another major factor in the Netherlands is the fall in the number people being held in pre-trial detention. The study shows that 21,029 spent time on remand in Dutch prisons in 2005, with that number falling to 13,350 by 2016 — a decrease of 37%.

In the same period — 2005 to 2016 — the number of crimes registered in the Netherlands fell from 1.35 million to 930,000. Crimes against property fell by 216,000 (-27%) and there were 32,000 fewer violent crimes (-26%).

But the biggest falls were registered for vandalism and public order offences (-50%) and drug-related crimes (-31%).

The crime rate reached a record low in 2018, with 770,000 registered offences. That figure has climbed again since then, but only slightly — reaching 798,000 in 2022.

More options for prosecutors

Since 2006, state prosecutors in the Netherlands can handle some cases without the involvement of a judge and even impose non-custodial sentences, such as fines or community service. It's a change that was introduced to speed up the judicial process and reduce the workload for judges.

The reform meant that fewer cases ended up in court, where suspects would have faced a possible custodial sentence. This in turn contributed to the overall fall in prisoner numbers.

Longer investigations

Research by criminologists Judith van Valkenhoef and Edward van der Torre published in 2017 raised some doubts about the degree to which these statistics represent a success story for the Dutch judicial system. Their study points to other issues, such as inefficient police investigations and failures by state prosecutors to bring criminals to justice.

They argue that the Netherlands has become a major center for the synthetic drugs market and is likely to remain so without political action.

For the University of Portsmouth's Professor Francis Pakes, co-author of the above report, the statistics don't tell the whole story, and the overall decline in the prisoner population isn't solely the result of fewer crimes being committed. The study suggests that there are other factors at play, such as fewer cases being prosecuted or even investigated. He cites the growing influence of the drugs mafia in the Netherlands as evidence of this development.