A new frontier for outsourcing
"The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees".
Good for the Dutch. What are they doing that we are not, and might they offer some hints?
Here, however, is the interesting bit:
Some reprieve might come from a deal with Belgium, which is facing overpopulation in its prisons. The two countries are working out an agreement to house Belgian prisoners in Dutch prisons. Some five-hundred Belgian prisoners could be transferred to the Tilburg prison by 2010.I had a conversation with another blogger (I forget who) a while back about the prospects of outsourcing gaols to other jurisidictions, and I concluded that considerations over visits by relatives would make this fall at the first hurdle.
Labels: crime and punishment, Netherlands
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on Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 8:28 am.
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We tried that decades ago, and just wound up creating Australia.
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