Prison forgets to release detainee, keeping him locked up an extra 7 weeks

An administrative error led authorities to keep a prisoner locked up in jail for 49 more days than he was supposed to be detained. The man was only supposed to be incarcerated for 24 days, but he remained in custody for 73 days in total, said the DJI, the government agency in charge of prisons and other correctional facilities.

He was kept in the Blue Band Bajes, a penitentiary in Arnhem, Gelderland. During a check on 25 August, “it was discovered that the data of the detainee’s sentence had not been correctly processed in the records” of the prison facility, the DJI said in their monthly report about operations and incidents.

“The detainee should have been released from detention on 7 July 2022. After that was established, the detainee was released with an apology from the penitentiary, and was given the opportunity to request financial compensation for the period that he was wrongfully detained,” the report stated.

The amount of compensation available to the man was not released. The DJI also did not state the reason he was in the prison in the first place.