Dutch juvenile prisons violate nearly every children's right: Children's Ombudsman
The six juvenile detention centers in the Netherlands violate nearly all children’s rights, Children’s Ombudsman Martgrite Kalverboer told Nieuwsuur. "We are not providing children with good education. They cannot make good use of their free time. They often do not receive the treatment they need,” she said. The only rights not violated are that these children have a roof over their heads, food, and a bed to sleep in, the Children’s Ombudsman said.
Last year, the Education Inspectorate, the Inspectorate of Justice and Security, and the Inspectorate for Health and Youth Care raised the alarm about the situation at juvenile justice institutions. They received reports about young people systematically missing school hours, getting too little time outside, and daytime activities being canceled on a regular basis. The Inspectorate pointed to the staff shortages in these penitentiaries.
A year later, the Children’s Ombudsman and the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights are both investigating the situation in juvenile detention centers. The situation has barely improved, Kalverboer told Nieuwsuur.
The children in juvenile detention have a legal right to 77 hours of group activities per week, including education. Due to years-long staff shortages, this had already been lowered to 62 hours per week, but even that is now regularly not being met.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 teenagers are housed in the six juvenile detention centers in the Netherlands per year.
Nieuwsuur spoke to a 24-year-old who spent over six years in a juvenile detention center and is now serving time in an adult prison. “On some days, you got out for an hour of fresh air, and you were simply alone in your cell from morning until the next day,” he told the program.
He sometimes went days without education because there was no staff available. And complaints were ignored or obstructed, he said. “At one point, we were no longer allowed to file complaints. Or we received compensation if we withdrew the complaint, like a pack of cigarettes.”
Dave Hovenga, who is trying to improve the situation for his son in the juvenile detention center in Spijkenisse, confirmed to Nieuwsuur that prison staff ask the teens in their care to withdraw their complaints in exchange for rewards. “He was bribed multiple times with a bottle of fabric softener or a Coke or that kind of nonsense.”
Marcel Companjen, chairman of the Supervisory Committee of the juvenile detention center in Lelystad and representative of all six institutions, is very concerned. “Of course, they are not here because they have done nothing wrong, but they are also here because they need to be guided towards their return to society. The question is whether they are actually receiving that guidance, and that is what we are concerned about.”
According to Companjen, the number of complaints has become so high that young people automatically receive compensation if they don’t receive enough activity hours. “Painful,” he said. “Young people themselves also indicate: I don’t need money, I just want my trajectory.”
The investigations by the Children’s Ombudsman and the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights are ongoing. The results are expected before the end of the year.
The Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency (DJI) and the Ministry of Justice and Security acknowledge the problems in juvenile detention centers. The DJI told Nieuwsuur that it has increased efforts in the recruitment, training, and retention of staff, and these are starting to have effect, but the shortages remain large. The Ministry attributed the persistent problems to staff shortages and is mapping out what additional measures are needed.
