Persons required to report to prison to serve out short custodial sentences once again being called up
At the beginning of next year, the Custodial Institutions Agency (DJI) will start calling up persons who are required to report to prison to serve out short custodial sentences and who could not be placed in prison previously due to capacity shortages. State Secretary Ingrid Coenradie (Justice and Security) has written this to the House of Representatives.
From the first quarter of 2025, there will be 40 places available at the Veenhuizen penal institution, Groot Bankenbosch location, for placing persons required to report to prison to serve out short custodial sentences. A scaled-down day programme will apply for these places so that fewer staff will be required. By law, only persons required to report to prison to serve out sentences of up to 2 weeks can be placed here.
Half of the 3,445 persons required to report to prison who have not been called up due to capacity shortages have a sentence of up to two weeks outstanding. The opening up of these places means that several hundred and, in the best case scenario, more than a thousand persons required to report to serve out short sentences can be called up per year. The state secretary will continue to work with the DJI to find additional capacity to also place persons required to report to prison to serve out longer custodial sentences. The starting point is that sentences imposed must be enforced.
State Secretary for Justice and Security Ingrid Coenradie: “I am glad that despite the shortages, the DJI has managed to create additional places for persons required to report to prison to serve out short custodial sentences. It is an important step in the right direction. I will continue to work very hard to generate more capacity. But we are not there yet. The capacity problems at the DJI are too intractable for that. Difficult choices in relation to tough measures seem inevitable. But I will not be shying away from those.”
Persistent capacity shortages
Coenradie wrote in her letter that the capacity problems at the DJI are persistent and will increase in the coming period. That is why many possible measures are now being reviewed to assess whether they will free up additional capacity.
The measures being considered include curtailing the number of hours of work, which would mean detainees would spend more hours in their cells and fewer staff would be required. More use will also be made of multi-person cells where possible and justified.
Renting prison cells in Estonia
The state secretary was in Estonia this week to visit the prison in Tartu and was warmly welcomed by Minister for Justice Liisa-Ly Pakosta. It was agreed that the possibility of the Netherlands renting prison cells in Estonia would be seriously investigated. There are financial, legal and practical questions to be answered. The Netherlands and Estonia are determined to collaborate on this and figure out the best way to work together.