Prisoners sentenced to years in prison are also released due to a shortage of staff

• Jorn Jonker

  political reporter

People who have been sentenced to several years in prison are also currently walking around freely due to the staff shortage in prisons. Figures that NOS requested from the Ministry of Justice and Security show that the longest-serving prisoner who is now free has a prison sentence of four years and five months. More than a hundred people with sentences of more than one year are now walking free.

For example, in March, where the most recent figures are available, someone was sentenced to three years and ten months in prison. There was no place in prison for him either. The government previously stated that only people who received a sentence for minor offenses would have to serve it at a later date.

There are enough cells, but there is a serious shortage of prison guards. That is why outgoing Minister Weerwind for Legal Protection recently took a number of temporary measures to give the prisons some breathing space.

For example, some convicts are sent home early with an ankle monitor. In addition, be self-detectors temporarily not called up.

Self-reporters are convicts who normally receive a letter stating when they must report to a prison to serve their sentence. The intention is that these are not the most serious criminals, because they are usually immediately taken to jail after their conviction or an arrest warrant is issued for them.

That is not the case with these self-detectors. It is believed that they will not run away and that they will report as soon as they receive a call. But those calls are not being sent now. The self-reporters are allowed to roam freely until the staff shortage in the prisons is resolved. Two weeks ago there were 2,400 on the waiting list.

Members of Parliament asked Minister Weerwind in a debate two weeks ago what kind of convicts these are. “You should think of minor offenses, such as insulting a civil servant in office. We are really talking about minor offenses for which the judge has given the punishment.”

Now that NOS MPs hear that there are also people walking around freely with sentences of around four years in prison, they feel they have been misinformed by the minister. “The impression has been created that these are minor crimes, but when I hear these figures, they are not minor crimes,” says NSC MP Uitermark. “The minister has some explaining to do.”

BBB MP Helder is also surprised. “Four years and five months, that can never be for a minor offense,” says Helder. “This cannot be explained to victims and society,” says SP MP Van Nispen.

The ministry does not yet want to say what crimes these people have been convicted of. After asking the ministry, the NOS was only told the amount of the sentence. NSC MP Uitermark is a former judge and knows that people who have committed minor offenses do not receive prison sentences of around four years. This is more likely to involve robberies or major drug offences.

In response, Minister Weerwind emphasizes that most self-reporters are actually people with relatively short sentences. Half of them received a sentence of two weeks or less. But members of the House of Representatives say that he should have immediately said that there are also people with much higher sentences. Weerwind says that 95 percent of the people who are now allowed to walk around freely due to the staff shortage have a sentence of one year or less.

This means that more than a hundred people with sentences of more than one year are now walking around freely. When asked why Weerwind did not tell parliament that there were also longer-sentenced prisoners on the waiting list for prison, he said: “I gave the House the information I had at the time.”