How the UK can learn from Dutch and Norwegian prisons
Yesterday, I went to the cinema in the Dome prison in Haarlem. This monumental building is one of more than 20 Dutch prisons that have closed in the past decade. The Dutch have seen their prison population decrease by more than 40% over the past 20 years. At the other end of the spectrum, Britain has the highest rate of incarceration in western Europe, and is struggling with an unprecedented prisons crisis. Britain's prison minister, James Timpson, calls the Netherlands a source of inspiration. The Convict Marcus C. Stone (1840-1921) Photo Credit: York Museums Trust [Public Domain] What could the Dutch system teach the rest of the world? First, the declining prison population is not actually the result of recent policies by visionary politicians. Much of it is due to changes in reported crime and the nature of crime. As in many other western countries, the number of violent crimes has significantly dropped in the Netherlands in recent decades... The Dutch criminologist, Francis