Why This European Country Has Very Few Prisons

There are many countries around the world where it is not safe to plan a visit. In some of these countries, criminal cases are high, while in others, looting and murder are common due to poverty and hunger. In such a situation, the police also have to be very vigilant. But have you ever heard of any country where there are no criminals to put behind bars?

You must be surprised to hear that there is a country on the planet where crime does not happen. Let us tell you that there is one such country in Europe. The name of this country is the Netherlands, where there are no criminals.

In the year 2013, there used to be 19 prisoners here, but by 2018, the jails had deserted. In such a situation, this European country decided to close its jails soon as a result of the decrease in the crime rate. According to a report published in 2016 by The Telegraph, UK, the Dutch Ministry of Justice suggested that the total crime rate would fall by 0.9 per cent per year in the next five years. In such a situation, it is appropriate to close the jails.

But closing the prisons meant that about two thousand people would lose their jobs. Only 700 of them could have been transferred to other government roles. In 2018, the issue of empty prisons reached such an extent that in 2017, the Netherlands had to bring prisoners from Norway to keep in the prisons.

Although there are still prisons in the Netherlands, the number of prisoners is very low. Most prisoners from foreign countries are lodged in them. Ankle monitoring systems are used to monitor them. At the same time, people serving sentences are allowed to read, write, and work in the open.

An ankle monitoring system is a device that people under house arrest or prisoners in jails must wear at all times. Through this, prisoners have to stay within a set limit. If they try to go out, the radio frequency signal in the ankle monitoring system immediately informs the police about it. Not only this, the ankle monitoring system has been able to reduce the rate of recidivism by convicted criminals by more than half as compared to traditional imprisonment in the country. So instead of making prisoners sit all day, they are asked to work, and they can be brought back into the prison.