He was just putting the finishing touches to his book, a biography of an ex-convict, when Frank van Gemert received an ominous message from his main character. “Peace at last,” was the topic. And then: “Hi Frank, this will be my last email, if you are reading this, I am already out of society.”
Van Gemert, criminologist at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, thought he knew his object of study. Jan, a tall guy, covered in tattoos, 54 years old. He had spoken with Jan countless times for his scientific life course study. About the abuse by his father, life in a home after his parents’ divorce, the rough life in Amsterdam. About the failed drug transport to the United States and the years that followed in an American prison. Jan had become a member of the Sureños, a notorious one prison corridor.
Jan actually liked life as a gang member and found it difficult to settle back in the Netherlands. “I function better in prison,” he had once confided to his biographer. Jan missed the clarity of a prison regime and outside the walls the three W’s were missing: home, work, wife. Because of his heartless youth, Jan had also developed a tendency to solve everything with violence. But…had he done something to himself?
The penny dropped when Van Gemert read in an online news report a few days later: “A 48-year-old Utrecht resident was injured on Saturday evening when he was stabbed by a 54-year-old fellow citizen.”
That perpetrator, that was Jan.
He had directed his act. Jan had deliberately sought out a victim – a drug user who in his eyes was not attached to life – in order to end up behind bars again. Preferably for a longer period of time, Van Gemert understood when he visited Jan. And preferably with treatment, because of his problems. In a clinic, if necessary. TBS, provision: a freedom-restricting measure imposed on those who were (partly) incompetent during the commission of a serious crime.
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Photo Olivier Middendorp
TBS system in practice
Jan got what he wanted. For attempted murder he was sentenced to five years in prison and a TBS order for an indefinite period. That was in 2010. And while Van Gemert was completing Jan’s biography, the subject for part two immediately presented itself: the TBS system. Van Gemert only knew this measure from the fuss that occasionally flares up about it at talk show tables or in politics. TBS officers who evade leave, high costs of the system, lawyers who fear that their client will never be released. All the consternation did not make it clear: how does the TBS system work in practice?
Clinics only provide openness in exceptional cases and always on their own terms – or those of their client, the Ministry of Justice. But now Van Gemert had the opportunity to describe the system from the inside. Based on one person, TBS patient Jan, whom he was able to visit from his very first step across the threshold of the clinic.
Van Gemert followed his study object for more than twelve years. He saw Jan, who functioned so well in prison, struggling endlessly with the system. So long that even the criminologist no longer understood what TBS was actually for. But after eight years his view changed. He saw Jan transform from a tough guy to a gentle person, and his conclusion is now different. Yes, TBS works for Jan, but for different reasons than you usually hear from the sector itself. Van Gemert wrote down his insights in the book published this month In TBS. Twelve years in.
A classic N=1 study. What is the added value of this?
Van Gemert: “Depth. Look, Jan is not Pete, so you can’t generalize. But I see this as an ethnographic study. By placing Jan in context, I try to understand more about the system around him. Why does Jan react differently in a TBS institution than in prison? Why is he having trouble with the system? This is an anthropological method from the US that I also teach my students. Then I give them an assignment: interview a crook and write a biography.”
A commonly used method?
“Unfortunately less and less. Qualitative research takes time, which clients – often governments – usually do not have. Moreover, the outcome is uncertain and the fear of legal consequences is increasing. Nowadays, if you want to interview dealers on the street, you first have to shove a form under their nose with the question: would you like to sign this? Well, then they drop out. Clients therefore increasingly opt for surveys with anonymous respondents.”
Then the outcome is scientifically significant.
“Yes, but you usually cannot find out from such research how exactly connections work and why. People are not numbers. Reality is more complicated than we think, we do not always behave logically, connections are not as linear as we suggest. You need depth to gain insight into this and a subject such as TBS, which involves a lot of emotion, benefits from this.”
Also read this report: ‘Get up on time every morning’, ‘Don’t swear at anyone’: this is what the daily practice of a TBS clinic looks like
Van Gemert gained such an insight when Jan was transferred from prison to a TBS institution. Before he could receive treatment, Jan served his sentence in prison. Together with the lovebird Taliban, he ended up in a cell in Veenhuizen. As he expected, he had a good time. Tight rules, a clear regime. Jan was respected because of his gang past and his reputation as a hard, violent criminal, who has nothing to lose and therefore enjoys a certain untouchability.
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Photo Olivier Middendorp
Everything changed when Jan was admitted to the De Woenselse Poort TBS clinic in Brabant at the end of 2013. Suddenly he was living among – weak – patients instead of – strong – criminals. Prison standards turned out to be worthless here. Jan, a soloist, had to survive in a group and because everyone was in their own treatment phase, different regimes applied. One was allowed to go on leave, the other was not. There was more freedom, more drug trafficking, more unrest. Jan couldn’t deal with it, kept to himself, took up the fight and ended up – more or less to his joy – isolated in the seclusion. For nine months.
One of Jan’s points of contention was the bird. Jan was not allowed to have a pet in the TBS clinic. But ultimately, after months of discussion, the practitioners changed tack. Van Gemert: “They said: ‘We will make an exception for you’.”
Jan happy.
“I thought so too! But not so. Jan saw it as a knee jerk, it confused him. Because this showed that the rules were different for everyone. For someone like Jan, who likes clarity, prison was a stable home. TBS was a swamp. He had no guidance, no focus, no idea what to do to get out.”
Van Gemert knew the TBS mainly from the image that the sector itself likes to convey: a paradise for self-realization. Music therapy, sports therapy, group therapy, clay pots. But when he followed Jan, he didn’t see any of that again. In fact, there seemed to be no treatment at all – apart from schema therapy. Jan spent most of his time playing games in his room and arguing in the group. He was transferred, first to the Oostvaarderskliniek in Almere and then to the Van der Hoeven Clinic in Utrecht. Jan was always hopeful: are they going to treat me here? But each time nothing changed.
After eight years without progress, Van Gemert was also scratching his head. “What exactly is treatment, I wondered.” But then came the turning point. From his room window, Jan followed the construction of De Sluis, a new complex on the site in Utrecht, with rooms with their own kitchen with oven. If he wanted to qualify for this, he had to follow a step-by-step plan, he understood. Jan was motivated. He wanted to go for it.
Finally clarity, a clear goal.
“Yes, but now Jan became frustrated again. Because the clinic kept changing the conditions. ‘If you want to go to De Sluis, you can only take so much furniture with you.’ ‘Then you must have 3,000 euros in savings’.”
It was not a straight line for Jan.
“The clinic kept throwing up new pitfalls and obstacles.”
Why do you think that was?
“Well, because that’s the case in real life too. The TBS system, I realized, is a machine that runs exactly like society. Patients want clarity – what steps do I need to go through to get out? – but they don’t get it. The rules are different for everyone and the logic is sometimes difficult to find. From the idea, I think, of getting the individual used to society. Because you can be difficult, but in the end everyone will have to participate. And that is the treatment. Much more than the classic therapies that the TBS sector uses.”
How does the sector itself see this?
“I was unable to ask because, to my frustration, the clinic refused any cooperation. I’ve tried, an N=1 study is better from multiple perspectives. But the envelope containing the proof of my book was returned unopened.”
Why?
“Fear, I think. The sector would like to check the image that emerges about TBS, and they do not allow an external researcher. But in doing so they have created a closed world about which the people at the talk show tables can only talk about in an unqualified manner, simply because they are not informed. Openness would help, so that the sector itself can also participate in that conversation.”
Jan is now feeling good about himself. Since he has been staying in a room in De Sluis at the end of 2021 – Jan managed to overcome all the hurdles – Van Gemert has seen that Jan has become calmer, more gentle too. He’s getting older, that counts. The oven that Jan now has at his disposal also plays a major role, the criminologist thinks. Jan likes to hand out his baked goods to everyone he believes deserves it. Lemon, stracciatella, carrot cake, red velvet. Even when Van Gemert comes by, Jan serves a slice and he always gets a whole cake to take home. It has changed his relationship with Jan. The biographer always brought something for Jan on his visits – clothes, a plant – but that was not always appreciated. Because Jan had nothing to give back, he now realizes. “The more I gave, the more Jan became emotionally indebted.”
Together with the lovebird Taliban, Jan ended up in prison in Veenhuizen. He had a good time there, as he expected
Cake gives Jan self-esteem. It gives him something in his hands, literally, to relate to others. “An instrument to be kind to someone else without words. Very accessible, because you just baked one. The TBS sector could do much more with this. All of Holland Bakt for patients!”
How does Jan view himself now?
“They are happy with me,” he said recently. Remarkable, because that is at odds with his autonomy. Jan was always the ‘hard’ one who never needed anyone else. He always had a soft side, but he didn’t show it. Jan did not need to be liked, he even saw that as ‘weak’. But now he gives in. ‘I’m becoming a wimp,’ he says.”
Also read this article: How can someone have been in a TBS clinic for ten years without a conviction?
A version of this article also appeared in the September 26, 2023 newspaper.