DutchNews.nl, January 22, 2015
Veenhuizen
jail. Photo: Photo: China
Crisis Wikimedia
|
CommonsThis summer, up to 242 convicts will be brought from Norway to
the Netherlands to serve out their sentences in a Dutch jail, junior justice
minister Fred Teeven told parliament on Thursday.
Teeven said he had signed an
agreement with the Norwegian prison authorities to provide jail places for the
prisoners, who will not necessarily be Norwegian. ‘It could be a Pole, Latvian
or Lithuanian with a Norwegian prison sentence,’ he said.
The foreign prisoners
will be housed in the jail in Veenhuizen, in rural Drenthe, which had been
threatened with closure because of Dutch prison cutbacks. Veenhuizen has a long
history as a penal colony within the Netherlands.
Teeven said he had agreed
with the Norwegians that the prisoners moved to the Netherlands would not be
serving life or other very long sentences. However, he told parliament he could
not guarantee there will be no people convicted of terrorist offences.
The plan
to bring in foreign prisoners is one of several measures introduced by Teeven
to try to improve prison service finances. Belgium already places some of its
prisoners in Tilburg because of its shortage of jail spaces.
Terrorism
Teeven
also told MPs research is being done on the impact of housing people with
convictions for terrorism in the same place. Nearly everyone convicted of such
offences in the Netherlands is kept in a high security unit in either Rotterdam
or Vught to stop them spreading radical ideas.
However, critics say the policy of isolation and the tough regime may actually increase radicalisation.
However, critics say the policy of isolation and the tough regime may actually increase radicalisation.
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.