Penalization and retreat
| DOI | 10.1177/1466802505053495 |
| Published date | 01 May 2005 |
| Date | 01 May 2005 |
| Author | Francis Pakes |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Penalization and retreat:
The changing face of Dutch criminal
justice
FRANCIS PAKE S
University of Portsmouth, UK
Abstract
This article examines criminal justice policy in the Netherlands from
1994 until 2002. These so-called purple years, in reference to the
labour–liberal coalition government in office were characterized by
falling crime rates and a hugely expanding criminal justice state at
the expense of traditional Dutch reductionist penal policy. The
emergence of a Dutch-style crime complex requires scrutiny in light
of Downes’s emphasis on Dutch post-war tolerance towards
lawbreakers. I conclude that tolerance no longer is a driving force
in penal matters but it continues to inform the governance of areas
of ambiguous morality such as euthanasia and prostitution. The
beneficiaries of the new tolerance are no longer offenders but
rather those making certain life choices or preferring certain
lifestyles. This article looks at causes and effects of these changes in
the nature of criminal justice governance in the Netherlands.
Key Words
crime complex • Netherlands • penalization • tolerance
A Dutch-style crime complex
The concept of Dutch tolerance to deviance emerged largely thanks to
Downes’s work on penal policy in the Netherlands (Downes, 1982, 1988).
It generated lively debate, not least in the Netherlands itself (e.g. de Haan,
1990; Franke, 1990). Tolerance was the causal factor utilized to explain a
sustained period of decarceration after the Second World War, at a time of
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Criminal Justice
© 2005 SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1466–8025; Vol: 5(2): 145–161
DOI: 10.1177/1466802505053495
rising crime rates during which prison rates in England and Wales con-
sistently increased. One might start arguing that today, Dutch tolerance is
a non-issue as the phenomenon it was called upon to explain, the low
prison rates, has disappeared. The Netherlands no longer deserves its
reputation as a country in which crime is rare and sentencing lenient. In
fact, the International Crime Victimization Survey 2000 measurement
sweep put the country near the top of the list (van Kesteren et al., 2001). It
falls into the ‘high’ band of overall victimization together with Australia,
England and Wales and Sweden. Of the 17 countries involved, these are the
ones with a victimization rate of over 24 per cent. However, much of this
is caused by high levels of petty crime, most notably bicycle theft and car
vandalism, which account for about 50 per cent of all reported victim-
ization. Contact crime, i.e. robbery, assault with force and sexual assault
are at an average level (van Kesteren et al., 2001).
Smit (2002) stressed repeatedly that crime levels in the Netherlands are
in no way exceptional. In a nation traditionally ‘not obsessed with crime’
(Adler, 1983) that is seen to be worthy of emphasis. Violent crime may have
increased until as recently as 1999, although this finding is not undisputed
as changes in recording practices may have had an impact (van Koppen,
2003). On the other hand, property crimes have substantially decreased
since 1994. The fall in property crimes accounts for an overall decline in
crime rates since 1994 (Smit, 2002).
Meanwhile use of imprisonment has risen sensationally (Pakes, 2000;
Tak, 2002b). After decades of decarceration, prison rates reached a low
point in the mid-1970s, with about 25 imprisoned per 100,000 population.
Today, however, the prison rate is about 85 per 100,000 (Walmsley, 2002),
which is near the European average.
This trend of increased use of the prison system was already well
established before the labour–liberal administration came to power in
1994, but it was only then that a prison building programme got underway
that led to 14 newly built penal institutions between 1994 and 1996 (Tak,
2002b). The total prison capacity stood at 16,577 in 2002 (Kok, 2002)
following an increase of 5389 prison cells in the 8 years that the labour–
liberal government was in office.
While the increase in number of prisoners and prisons is the most eye-
catching expansion of the criminal justice system, both the police and the
prosecution service also have expanded and continue to grow. The police
force is set to rise by 4000 in 2008. That is on top of an increase of 3400
achieved during the labour–liberal government by 2001 (Social Cultural
Planning Bureau, 2002).
The Ministry of Justice’s budget has been increased to accommodate the
new prison industrial complex. Even after 2002 the budget is expected to
require injections of j70M in 2003 up to over j200M in 2008 to
accommodate for the ever-increasing need to detain more and more
wrongdoers. As ‘Garlandian’ administrations do, a 2002 government paper
continues to speak of a ‘serious and acute shortage in capacity’ and predicts
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