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Minister Plans to Largely Abolish Prison Sentences
NIS NEWS ^ | 05/05/07 | staff

Posted on 05/06/2007 4:35:11 AM PDT by Leisler

THE HAGUE, 05/05/07 - Most criminals in the Netherlands should be able to serve their sentence at home in the future. Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin is to introduce house arrest as a new main punishment. Criminals can then also visit friends or a mosque for two hours a day.

Judges will have the option of imposing house arrest as the main penalty, with a maximum duration of four months. Because sentences are relatively short in the Netherlands, the majority of criminals will be eligible for this. The Lower House does still have to pass the proposed bill, sent by the minister Friday to various bodies including the Council for Jurisprudence (RvR) , the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) and the Netherlands Bar Association for their advice.

Hirsch Ballin expects house arrest to offer a solution for cases where a fine or community service is experienced as too light and "a stay in prison is not seen as necessary" or is seen as too severe a sentence, according to Trouw newspaper. Expectations are that judges will impose fewer jail sentences.

Under the bill, whether criminals remain in the vicinity of their homes will be monitored by an electronic ankle or wrist-band. Those convicted will however be able to leave their homes for two hours a day. This will only be allowed according to a schedule agreed beforehand. The two hours can be used for doing shopping, visiting family, sports activities or a visit to a mosque or other religious event.

If the criminal leaves home outside the times agreed, an alarm will go off in a police reporting room. The minister also wants to maintain unscheduled home visits as a means of checking. If the criminal fails to stick to the regime, the old situation will come into effect: house arrest will revert to prison.

Those under house arrest will receive welfare payments. Only if they run a company from their living-room or do other work that yields sufficient money will they receive no financial support from the minister. They can also do a home course.

"House arrest is experienced as a real punishment," according to a spokesman for Hirsch Ballin. "At the same time, social networks remain in place."

The measure is primarily intended to relieve the prisons. The Netherlands has been struggling for years with a shortage of cells, even though the number of people in prison per head of population is about six times lower than in the US.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: moralabsolutes
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1 posted on 05/06/2007 4:35:14 AM PDT by Leisler
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To: Leisler

Typical liberal garbage. Liberals really don’t want anyone to go to prison, or be punished, because liberals don’t judge. Liberals are tolerant. Criminals aren’r really responsible. Society did it to them.


2 posted on 05/06/2007 4:37:36 AM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged (liberalism is demented)
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To: Leisler
Criminals can then also visit friends or a mosque for two hours a day.

Church?
3 posted on 05/06/2007 4:39:25 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Greed is NOT a conservative ideal.)
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To: cripplecreek

I don’t think anybody in Holland goes to church anymore. That probably didn’t even come up.


4 posted on 05/06/2007 4:41:58 AM PDT by arthurus (Better to fight them over THERE than over HERE)
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To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged
Liberals are tolerant

As long as you believe what THEY believe.

5 posted on 05/06/2007 4:42:00 AM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
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To: cripplecreek

“Criminal” in the Netherlands is synonymous for Muslim.


6 posted on 05/06/2007 4:42:40 AM PDT by SolidWood (Islam is an insanity cult that makes everyone act Arab)
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To: Leisler

” Criminals can then also visit friends or a mosque for two hours a day “

Interesting ‘freudian slip’ here..... Implication is that the typical Dutch ‘criminal’ will attend a mosque???

Hmmmmmmmm.........


7 posted on 05/06/2007 4:43:59 AM PDT by Uncle Ike (He who smiles and keeps his head when all about are losing theirs - doesn't understand the situation)
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To: Leisler

ARE THEY BARKIN NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!


8 posted on 05/06/2007 4:48:02 AM PDT by Hydroshock (Duncan Hunter For President, checkout gohunter08.com.)
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To: Leisler
So, were a Muslim man to be sentanced to three months in prison for beating his wife, he'd have to serve his sentance at home? Where the crime occurred? While getting a support check for the government, and able to keep going to the mosque to be reassured that it's okay to beat your wife? (And still able to commit said crime at will)

Wow, what a great idea. Why don't they just rename the place Hollandistan now, because they're only a few inches away from becoming what is functionally a Sharia state.

9 posted on 05/06/2007 4:49:38 AM PDT by Steel Wolf (If every Republican is a RINO, then no Republican is a RINO.)
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To: Leisler

Maybe if they had to stay at home with a wife like hillary or Rosie O’Donnell this would be punishment.


10 posted on 05/06/2007 4:51:47 AM PDT by sgtbono2002 (I will forgive Jane Fonda, when the Jews forgive Hitler.)
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To: Uncle Ike
Like the Swedes, the Dutch government hates their citizens,
and truly wants every women raped and their men beheaded and stabbed (the Moslem-Dutch way).

"Holland and the EU are already dead, Jim"

11 posted on 05/06/2007 4:57:18 AM PDT by Diogenesis (Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum)
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To: Leisler
Those under house arrest will receive welfare payments.

Are they nuts over there? So you go and commit a crime, get to stay at home, and collect government welfare? When your jail sentance has run out, go and commit another crime and start this endless cycle all over?

12 posted on 05/06/2007 4:59:55 AM PDT by rawhide
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To: Leisler
The two hours can be used for doing shopping, visiting family, sports activities...

Wow! Harsh! Next thing you know, the judge will take away the perps extended cable privileges and sentence them to basic cable.

13 posted on 05/06/2007 5:00:29 AM PDT by 6SJ7
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To: All
I'm one of those people (anyone else? maybe I'm alone) who believes that some elements of our US CJ system are counterproductive.

For instance, imprisonment for non-violent property crimes (theft, fraud). It doesn't bring back the stolen property, and the thief sits on his backside in the most complete public housing, feeding, education, medical care and retirement program in the world.

In the ever-popular "make me dictator for a day" fantasy world, I would make non-violent property crimes punishable by double restitution: the thief returns what was stolen, twice.

Someone steals a ten-dollar bill, must restore $20.

A car thief would return the car, pay for any damage done and cleaning needed, and additionally the monetary value of the car. If the car was destroyed or irretrievably lost, the monetary restitution would be double the value of the car. If the car was later recovered, it would become the property and responsibility of the thief.

A fraudulent banker would actually keep his job while donating his assets and income above a subsistence level to restitution until the fraudulent takings were restored twice over.

Of course there are a lot of obstacles to doing this, but I think it still adds up to benefit...

Church time, gotta run, enjoy your day.

14 posted on 05/06/2007 5:14:56 AM PDT by ExGeeEye (To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.)
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To: ExGeeEye
Criminals commit tens, if not, hundreds of illegal acts before they are caught and convicted of a single crime. Under your plan, the paying double would only result in a ten to one percent increase in the ‘cost of doing (criminal) business’, so to speak.

Besides, how do you think a person, habituated to crime, disdainful of boring, low wage work with all the stiff? What, you think he/she/it is going to take a part time night job and pay with after tax dollars? Personally, I'm in favor of defending one's crappy car, box of old work tool just like Brinks or a Diamond wholesaler defends his property. With lethal force. For about ten years the media will be full of the usual pity stories about how young (fill in the blank) was a 'good kid' that was 'getting his life together', bla, bla, bla. We got plenty of young, illiterate, lazy, child making punks and we wouldn't miss them a bit.

15 posted on 05/06/2007 5:49:19 AM PDT by Leisler
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To: Leisler

God=God...Caesar=Caesar


16 posted on 05/06/2007 6:07:13 AM PDT by Don Corleone (Leave the gun..take the cannoli)
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To: Don Corleone
It’s odd but it seems the more a government taxes, the less it does. But then, why should it? If an organism, a person, a bureaucracy can conserve energy and prosper by being perfectly still, all the better for it.
17 posted on 05/06/2007 6:14:57 AM PDT by Leisler
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To: Leisler

Later read/pingout.

Mercy to the cruel is cruelty to the innocent.


18 posted on 05/06/2007 11:16:46 AM PDT by little jeremiah (Only those who thirst for truth can know truth.)
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To: 6SJ7

A criminal with a few smarts can easily squeeze in a decent crime in 2 hours.


19 posted on 05/06/2007 11:58:47 AM PDT by 3catsanadog (Vote for the person at the primaries; vote for the party at the election.)
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To: 230FMJ; 49th; 50mm; 69ConvertibleFirebird; Alexander Rubin; An American In Dairyland; Antoninus; ...
Intersting take on crime and punishment. They can't work, but they can visit mosques for two hours a day - the article does mention "other religious centers" or something like that further down the article. And the statement that the perps experience this as "real punishment" - while they get welfare!

I can imagine people committing crimes just so they can laze around at home getting welfare and still getting 2 hours a day to visit friends and the local mosque.

Watch crime plummit with this severe punishment!/not...

Just institute public canings. Cheaper, quicker, and much more effective.

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20 posted on 05/06/2007 3:28:42 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Only those who thirst for truth can know truth.)
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