Who are behind bars in our prisons?
image: Shiuly Suherni via Unsplash+
Compared to other countries, Dutch prisons have relatively few inmates. But who are behind bars in our prisons? Professor of Criminology and Comparative Penology Miranda Boone: ‘It's not the bad, but often the sad and the mad.’
Recent figures in the Netherlands show that 64 out of 100,000 people are in jail. That’s a very low figure when compared to countries such as Turkey (405), the US (531) and El Salvador (1086). Is that a good sign? To say whether Dutch prison policy is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, Professor Boone says you have to look at how the criminal justice system works. She explains that a criminal offence should not be seen as something static, but rather as a social construction: ‘It is the outcome of societal debate about punishable behaviour. That is what we focus on in criminal law.'
In that sense, the criminal justice system is shaped by government policy. 'If that’s mainly geared to domestic violence or burglaries, then you’ll mostly see these sorts of crime reflected in the figures. Registered crime therefore gives a distorted picture of the actual crime that occurs.' What’s more, according to Professor Boone, it seems inherent in the system that criminal law targets vulnerable people who are on the margins of society – people with debts, mental health problems or drug addicts for instance: ‘So it’s not the bad, the worst people, who are in prison, but often the sad and the mad: people who need help and support the most.’
More information?
Read the full NEMO Kennislink article (in Dutch)