Crime doesn’t pay, you will regret it very much. On Tuesday, two detainees convincingly conveyed this to a group of students from practical school De Esborg in Roden.
Sander (43) is a smart boy from Rotterdam and he completed pre-university education. He knows exactly how to build a successful company. But he used his talents in the wrong way and is now serving his sentence in prison Esserheem in Veenhuizen, after the judiciary linked him to the trade in 15,000 kilos of drugs. Another three years or so and he’ll be free again.
Regret
Together with fellow detainee Chris, Sander in Esserheem gives an information lesson to two classes of practical school De Esborg in Roden. Most of the listeners are 14 or 15 years old. The Prison Museum regularly organizes these kinds of meetings, together with Esserheem. The students are very quiet, every now and then a question comes up. “Do you have any regrets?”, one falls straight into the house. “Yes, huge,” is the answer. “Believe me, crime doesn’t pay,” says Chris.
Do you also celebrate New Year’s Eve?” is the next question. “No,” says Sander. “Not even Christmas.” “Well, I did have a Christmas tree this year,” says Chris.
Chris, also in his forties, was not as eager to learn as Sander, but he did enjoy going to house parties. He started using some ecstasy, then he started trading it. One thing led to another. When he was finally caught, the judiciary linked him to 900 kilos of cocaine.
‘Farmer from Groningen’
“In the eyes of the police and judiciary, I was a big boy, but I saw myself as a farmer from Groningen,” he says. “That’s because you also forget things you’ve done.” He was staying in an apartment in Spain when he received a phone call from Groningen. “There was a raid on my house. At the same time, Interpol was already at my door.”
A nightmare followed. First the Spanish prison, then to Germany. “I was there in restriction for two years and ten months.” He explains to the students that he was hardly allowed any contact with the outside world and had to stay in the cell almost all day. His parents were allowed to visit once, after a judge gave permission.
“You have quite expensive clothes on,” sounds from the audience. “Don’t you have any prison clothes?” “We got those clothes from friends,” laughs Sander. “We can wear our own clothes here. But you can only have a limited supply. Not thirty pairs of shoes or anything.” “In Germany I had to wear prison clothes,” adds Chris. “Everyone was wearing the same jogging suit. And that was usually worn by a previous inmate. The bloodstains of your predecessor were sometimes still there.”
Chris and Sander know all too well how easy it is to go down the wrong path. Sandra: “Don’t do it. Do not take a knife on the street. Don’t let criminals use you for odd jobs. You will regret it for the rest of your life.” Chris: “And you hurt others so much. I can still see my parents visiting Germany. They had to travel for a whole day and they were allowed to speak to me for 20 minutes, with an interpreter and two officers.”
Half a year with one pair of underpants
And if justice catches you, you lose everything, both detainees have experienced. “They confiscate everything, your money, your car, your clothes,” says Sander. “In Spain I had to do with one pair of trousers, one sweater and one underpants for six months,” says Chris.
But the real punishment will come after the time in prison, emphasizes Chris, who expects to be released at the end of 2026. To begin with, you often have to be wary of other criminals who still have a bone to pick with you. “And when you’ve been sitting for a long time, all kinds of ordinary things are very difficult. For example, you cannot just walk into a supermarket. You then get too many stimuli, you are not used to so many people around you.”
“Fortunately I still have my 12-year-old son and my wife to whom I can go back,” adds Sander. “But many detainees have no one left.”
The names of Chris and Sander have been changed. Because of the recognisability, they do not want to use their real names in the media.