Netherlands prisons are facing a dual crisis involving both a shortage of available cells and a lack of staff to safely operate facilities across the country. According to Jannine van den Berg, director of prison and immigration detention at the Custodial Institutions Agency (DJI), the pressure stems from active renovations closing parts of facilities alongside broader systemic shifts.
Did You Know? The Dutch criminal justice chain relies on a framework and metaphor established back in 1985, which traces cases from police investigation all the way through to the prison system.
Past closures and heavier sentences cause cell shortage
The current lack of cells traces back to decisions made in 2013, when prisons were shut down to save money during a period when the Netherlands experienced a large surplus of cell capacity.
Operations shifted after 2016, when investigative and prosecutorial policy turned toward tackling heavier offenses. As a result, heavier sentences are handed down, causing inmates to serve longer terms and occupy cells for extended periods, according to Boone. Van den Berg confirms that the DJI observes the same development on the ground, noting that prisoners remain behind bars more frequently for longer stretches while the inmate population grows increasingly complex.
Labor shortages and intense work increase staff absences
Beyond physical space constraints, labor shortages on the job market compound operational difficulties inside correctional facilities. Boone points out that prison work is intense, and running short-staffed triggers more security incidents. Those incidents subsequently generate high sickness absence rates among workers, which already sit higher than averages found in other employment sectors, according to the Leiden professor.
Shared Responsibility Across the Criminal Justice Chain
When the pressure mounts, public attention frequently turns toward the prison system as if it alone holds the power to fix the capacity crisis. Boone emphasizes that the prison system operates under certain capacities and implementation rules, meaning the problem must be identified much earlier in the criminal justice chain. Managing capacity effectively requires coordinated choices regarding which offenses get prosecuted and how much capacity is deployed for those trials.
Van den Berg states that while the DJI does everything within its power to maximize available capacity and ease employee strain, the agency is not the sole entity responsible. The Tweede Kamer also holds a critical role, particularly because funding to resolve the cell shortage remains unsettled and requires new measures. The Actieplan Gevangeniswezen, submitted to the Tweede Kamer by the state secretary before the summer, represents a necessary first step but falls short of a long-term fix for the DJI, according to Van den Berg.
Weighing Alternative Housing and Foreign Transfers
To cope with the immediate space crunch, authorities sometimes place multiple inmates inside a single cell, provided the configuration, security regime, and prisoner combination are deemed safe and responsible. Former state secretary Ingrid Coenradie previously explored loosening these housing rules, but Boone warns that mixing vulnerable individuals with severe social, psychological, and societal problems creates tension on the work floor. With daily activities and programming inside prisons already scaled back, these crowded conditions elevate security risks and diminish the facility as an attractive workplace.
Outsourcing Dutch prisoners to foreign facilities in neighboring countries is dismissed as a non-structural remedy. Van den Berg stresses that detaining prisoners abroad offers no structural remedy because detention fundamentally occurs under Dutch law and within the Dutch legal framework. Boone adds that transferring inmates to an environment where their native language is absent strips away practical resocialization opportunities and raises fundamental ethical questions about the goals of punishment.
Procedural Safeguards and Recidivism Risks
While the capacity shortage forces some pragmatic adjustments—such as releasing some prisoners two weeks early or allowing inmates to work outside prison walls during the day—experts warn that tampering with sentence lengths is not the core solution to public safety.
When cell shortages and staffing deficits crowd out the space and time required for proper rehabilitation programs, a dangerous gap emerges. Boone warns that abandoning these preparatory measures directly increases the risk of recidivism, posing a tangible long-term threat to society.
Dual shortages of cells and staff drive crisis
Is the current crisis driven by a shortage of cells or a shortage of staff?
Both factors drive the crisis simultaneously, according to Leiden criminology professor Miranda Boone and DJI director Jannine van den Berg. Facilities face a shortage of open spaces compounded by ongoing renovations, alongside staffing shortages driven by intense labor conditions and high sick-leave rates.
Can the Dutch prison capacity crisis be solved by renting cells in neighboring countries?
Sending inmates abroad would eliminate critical resocialization opportunities and strip away the native-language support required for rehabilitation.
What happens to suspects who are arrested while prisons are full?
Not every arrested individual immediately goes to a prison cell, as a formal criminal procedure must take place first. According to Van den Berg, suspects may be released directly from a police cell, placed under specific forms of oversight or conditions, or remanded into temporary pre-trial detention before the DJI ever steps in to manage their sentence.
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