Conditions at Dutch prisons and immigration holding facilities come under fire

The security measures at the high-security prison in Vught, Dordrecht, and Zwolle are excessive, the Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee (CPT) said in a report after its 2022 periodic visit to the Netherlands. It also noted excessive use of force and verbal abuse, including racist language, at the Rotterdam Immigration Detention Center.

“The visit was carried out to both the European part of the Kingdom and the constituent countries of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten,” the CPT said.

In the European part of the Netherlands, the CPT found no indications of “deliberate physical ill-treatment” of people in custody in prisons, police cells, or immigration detention centers. It also noted that the facilities staff and authorities cooperated well with its inspections. But it did raise several concerns.

The CPT said that people held in remand are often confined to their cells for up to 21 hours a day. The CPT was also very critical of how the police perform strip searches and place people at risk of suicide naked in an observation cell in a police station with no support. “Such a practice could be considered as inhuman and degrading treatment.”

The CPT paid extra attention to the regime at the maximum security prisons in Vught Dordrecht and Zwolle. “While the CPT acknowledges the need for adequate security measures for those who pose an enhanced security risk, the highly restrictive regimes and various security measures applied in the units appeared to be excessively restrictive,” the CPT said. “There can be no justification for the routine handcuffing of persons held in these units.” It also worried the committee that persons held in the unit for behavioral problems in Vught are often confined to their cells for 23 hours a day.

“Special efforts should be made to improve the regime and provide sufficient meaningful human contact to avoid conditions akin to the de facto solitary confinement,” the CPT said.

The committee also raised concerns about the Rotterdam immigration detention center, where staff were accused of excessive force and racism, and people were kept in their cells for 18 hours a day. It said the Rotterdam facility should ensure that it doesn’t disproportionately use solitary confinement and should have better safeguards and conditions.

“The CPT reiterates that it is inappropriate to apply prison rules to persons held in immigration detention,” the committee said. “At the same time, material conditions in the detention centers visited were very good.” It recommended providing more non-carceral and family-type living space to children and families at the center in Zeist and urged the Schiphol center to stop housing women with men not related to them.

The committee also urged the Dutch authorities to have a court - and not just the Minister - review life sentences periodically to determine pardons. “The report also makes recommendations to improve the disciplinary process and contact with the outside world as well as to review the operation of strip searches and to abandon the resort to restraint beds in prison.”

Dutch government response

The Dutch government said it “fully endorses” the recommendation that Rotterdam immigration detention center staff be reminded of the importance of treating people with respect and to review when it is actually necessary to use force.

The Dutch government said that people are only placed in the high-security unit (EBI) at Vught Prison if they are an extreme flight risk, pose an extreme risk to society, and are at risk of continuing criminal behavior while incarcerated. Soon, those held in the facility could also be placed there based on their role in a criminal enterprise. “Working in groups or in open rooms is not part of the daily program since this would be incompatible with the nature of detention in the EBI,” the government said. The prisoners held there could benefit from educational courses and activities. The government did acknowledge the possibility of expanding parent-child visitation for EBI prisoners.

The government did not comment about detaining people at risk of suicide in a cell, naked, and with no support, saying, “the government needs more time to consult the police on this matter.”

Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten

In Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten, the CPT found that the deliberate physical ill-treatment of people in custody “was not a major issue,” the committee said. “The Comittee’s delegation only found a few isolated allegations of physical ill-treatment by staff in these establishments and some allegations of excessive force, excessively tight handcuffing, and of verbal abuse.”

“This concerned in particular members of special intervention teams in Aruba and Curaçao when they carried out cell searches, as well as by custodial officers in Sint Maarten when dealing with recalcitrant prisoners or instances of inter-prisoner violence,” the committee said

The CPT noted refurbishments made in some police establishments, but prison conditions in Aruba and Curacao “remained poor in general,” the committee said. “The majority of prisoners were accommodated in dilapidated, dirty cells which were infested with vermin; sanitary annexes in multiple-occupancy cells were not fully partitioned, and a number of them had black mold on the walls.”

The committee also noted that the prisons in Aruba and Curacao had no suitable arrangements for disabled persons who “depend on the goodwill of other prisoners when they need to use the toilet or take a shower.” It urged the prisons on the two islands to create a more “suitable therapeutic environment” for prisoners with mental health problems and provide people at risk of self-harm or suicide with more contact with others, not less.

The CPT received reports that prisoners in police custody had delayed access to medical care, sometimes “for several days.” And detainees were sometimes held in police remand for 10 days or longer. The committee urged the police to limit remand to 3 days before court intervention.

The committee found that men held at the Dakota Immigration Detention Facility in Aruba were often kept in shipping containers, while men at the immigration detention center in Curacao faced “very poor” conditions. “At the end of the visit, the delegation requested the relevant authorities to cease to use the shipping containers in Aruba for the accommodation of persons and to take the facility in Curaçao out of service.”

The CTI also noted that it generally received good cooperation from facility staff and authorities in the Caribbean part of the Netherlands. “However, at Dakota Immigration Detention Centre in Aruba, the delegation was confronted with an openly hostile and aggressive attitude from the officer in charge of the facility at the time of the visit.”

Dutch government response

The Dutch government responded that police officers are “aware that excessive force or ill-treatment of any detainee is unacceptable and that if such occurs, it may have serious consequences.” But it added: “It should be noted, however, that detainees often misrepresent the course of events, failing to state that they had attacked the police officer(s) first.