Fundamental change of course: thieves and scammers as little as possible for the criminal court

The Public Prosecution Service will no longer prosecute the suspects of many crimes through the courts, but will punish it itself. This new policy was the first for thieves and scammers to go into silence. This is apparent from the confidential new internal ‘Instruction Intensification Penaly Decree’ NRC has laid the hand.

The policy document that came into effect on 1 February states that public prosecutors such as theft, scams, healing and still a few asset crimes themselves from now on dismiss themselves through a so -called penalty decision. Because only the judge may impose prison sentences, suspects of these offenses are only waiting for a fine or community service. This also applies to frequent perpetrators and criminal asylum seekers who, so far, did not qualify for such a penalty decision.

Not only the stuck criminal justice chain is the reason for the new policy of the OM, the cell deficiency also plays a role

The new policy means a fundamental change of course for the OM. The penalty decision is not only the standard for property crimes. Almost all criminal cases with a maximum prison sentence of six years on, the OM wants to handle independently in the near future. In “the upcoming period,” the Board of Procurators General reports on its own intranet, the number of offenses will “be extended in phases until the purpose of as few summons as possible for facts with a penalty max has been achieved of six years or less”.

Criminal law chain

The reason for the new judicial approach is to get stuck the criminal justice chain: the settlement of criminal cases takes longer and longer. “By imposing a criminal decision more often, the criminal court can be relieved and the judicial capacity is used for the heavier criminal cases,” the instruction says. The growing cell deficiencies in prisons also require a change of course, according to the OM. “Because less often a short -term custodial sentence will follow, penalties can be made that can be implemented effectively.”

The internal instruction does not state what criminal offenses the college refers to. The Criminal Code has a large number of criminal offenses on which a maximum penalty of six years, including bribery, percussion, forgery, in writing, preparation acts of hard drug trafficking, distributing child pornography and money laundering.

The Public Prosecution Service now also regularly imposes penalty decisions for lighter facts: around 42,000 in 2023. The internal instruction, which the College of Procurators General has sent to the heads of all OM parts, shows that the use of the use of The penalty decision wants to ‘enlarge’ and ‘maximize’.

The change of course is expected to lead to a large decrease in the number of prison sentences imposed. The OM wants “in principle no short -term custodial sentences” to be demanded. For all cases where the public prosecutor in court would demand a prison sentence of six months or shorter, the penalty decision – and therefore punishment via a community service or fine – is the appropriate road. This means that these criminal cases are therefore treated without the intervention of the judge and no longer in public. For example, if three years would want to demand, an officer can still bring the case to court.

Criticism

Around 20,000 custodial sentences are imposed annually, around 70 percent of them are shorter than three months. Scientists have been criticizing short prison sentences for a long time because they do more harm than good. For example, the Council for Criminal Law Application and Youth Protection, an advisory body of the government, argued for less short detention more than three years ago. The possibilities for behavioral change are limited in that short period and, moreover, a lot of damage occurs due to loss of job, income and housing. Moreover, the recidivism with other sanctions, such as community service sentences, would be lower.

The new course is an emphatic wish of the man who has been chairman of the College of Procurators General (the board of the Public Prosecution Service), Rinus Otte for two years. “With the police we are currently designing a new direction for our prosecution policy. We have to choose more often, “said Otte last year NRC. By one simplification of workHe wants to take out more criminal cases with the same number of people.

No law change is required for this approach. Since 2008, the OM has had the legal opportunity to impose a criminal decision for criminal offenses with a maximum prison sentence of six years.

Position of victims

In the past years, it turned out that the penalty decision practice has been wrong in recent years. At the end of 2021, the National Ombudsman stated that the Public Prosecution Service does not sufficiently include the position of victims in imposing a criminal decision. In contrast to a lawsuit, a victim has no (or a very limited) role in a penalty decision, which means that their victim rights are at stake.

In addition, the Attorney General at the Supreme Court, the OM’s supervisor, exposed in three separate investigations since 2017 that the OM did not comply with the law when imposing criminal decisions. Among other things, it turned out that the OM imposed decisions for facts that were not committed, or in cases without sufficient evidence of the criminal offense, or for facts for which that was not allowed at all. Theft, for example, was punished in the heavier variant with burglary. In addition, punishment decisions were not translated for foreign suspects, while that is mandatory. In the internal instruction, the OM writes that since the introduction there has been a lot of attention for the quality of the penalty decision and that there is now “an adult instrument with which you can quickly do justice to both suspects and victims”.

In many cases, a penalty decision means that the suspect receives a criminal record. Suspects do not have to accept a penalty decision, they can ‘resist’. In that case their case still comes to court. In that case, officers are prescribed in the internal instruction not to demand prison for the court either.

Justice officers is hardly left room to deviate from the instruction. An officer may only summon a suspect ‘in exceptional cases’ and if that is ‘strictly necessary after considering all interests’. With that weighing of interests, he is obliged to involve the chance that the custodial sentence “can be imposed quickly and under good circumstances with great certainty and enforced”. In other words: how quickly someone can sit in the cell. In view of the ‘Zwart’ code in the prison system and thousands of convicted people who are praised by State Secretary Ingrid Coenradie (PVV) who are freely walking around freely, the weighing of interests will not quickly lead to prison sentence.

Lower penalties

The instruction also shows that officers must demand lower penalties for recidivism. Dutch law has a community service prohibition that applies to a recidivism, among other things. If someone again commits the same criminal offense within five years, he may not receive community service. This also applies to theft and scams. The new internal instruction shows that in such cases officers should demand a fine: a sanction that is lower than a community service in the punishment hierarchy. If the suspect cannot pay for that fine because of his limited capacity, the officer must demand an (even) lower fine instead of another heavier punishment. Sessions in which the Public Prosecution Service imposes punishable decisions are not public.

A spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service announces when asked that it is still ‘fully studied’ how new policy can also be applied in the coming years. The primary goal is to relieve the criminal court, so that sessions can be used in court for heavier cases that otherwise wait too long for treatment. “The results of this course used cannot be expressed in advance.”

To share





Mail the editors