Due to the ‘black code’ in the prisons, convicts are released a maximum of two weeks earlier. State Secretary Ingrid Coenradie (PVV) of Justice and Security announced this on Friday after the Council of Ministers.
In a letter to the House of Representatives, Coenradie states with her back against the wall and forced to make ‘very painful choices’. Because both the prisons, houses of custody and cells at the police station are full – Coenradie speaks of an occupancy rate of 99.5 percent – no flow is possible. Suspects arrested by the police cannot then be held.
Coenradie therefore wants to send prisoners who have imposed a maximum prison sentence of one year a maximum of fourteen days before their sentence is home to it. Neders’ offenders and prisoners who have been convicted of serious violent crimes are exempted with this. With this step, the State Secretary is expanding an existing emergency measure. This group is currently released three days earlier.
However, the measure is politically sensitive. When last month leaked that Coenradie considered this measure, coalition parties PVV and VVD fiercely turned against it. PVV leader Geert Wilders collided with Coenradie and stated that his State Secretary had to place more prisoners on a cell as a solution. The judiciary also showed itself critically about the early release of convicts. It means that the judge’s judgment is not complied with: the suspect does not undergo the (full) punishment imposed.
Cellar
The crisis in the prison system arose in the course of 2023 and was initially mainly caused by staff shortages at the Judicial Institutions Agency (DJI) and the increasing number of detainees due to higher punishments. There is now also a cell deficiency. Since then, Coenradie and its predecessor Franc Weerwind (D66) have taken various measures. For example, convicted people who are allowed to undergo their prison penalty are not called to wait. In the meantime, more than four thousand of such self -detectors are running free. Also thousands of people who should actually go into jail, because they did not carry out their community service or did not pay their fine, still free.
At the end of this year, around 330 places will be short of the nearly 6,800 places in regular prison regimes. With various small measures, including the creation of a maximum of one hundred additional places on multi -person cells, the State Secretary is not given that gap, she writes in the letter of Parliament. Measures such as the deployment of defense personnel or transferring prisons to Estonian prisons are also not options.
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That is why the State Secretary opts for the ’emergency measure’ to have DJI sent a specific group of detainees home a maximum of two weeks earlier. That happens with ‘customization’: DJI decides on the basis of the crowds who and where you can go home earlier. The State Secretary does not report how many convicts were expected this year.
After the Council of Ministers, Coenradie said that for the measure within the cabinet there is ‘sufficient support’ and that Wilders would also accept the measure. Formally, a ministerial regulation must be adjusted for the early release: a process that lasts a few months. DJI can, however, immediately pass from Coenradie.
In recent weeks, Coenradie has called for an investment of ‘hundreds of millions’ to be able to cope with capacity problems in the prison system. With that money she wanted to renovate and reopen the previously closed prison in Almere. However, the cabinet does not seem willing to make extra investments. Coenradie writes the House of Representatives that in principle there is “no additional (structural) budget available” and it must be looked at what is possible within existing budgets.