Criminal justice system of the Netherlands
Each force comprises a number of regional and specialist departments, such as the Juvenile and Vice Squad, the Criminal Intelligence Service and the Aliens Police.
The KLPD is responsible for the supervision and surveillance of the motorways, airways, and waterways, as well as providing security for the Royal Family.
Basic police work includes responsibility for maintaining a visible presence on the street, on foot, or in a marked car.
Police frequently deal with traffic issues, including those of surveillance, accidents, congestion security, and advising citizens and municipalities.
The Council of State Administrative Law section also serves as an appellate court for citizens against executive branch decisions.
Under Dutch Constitutional Law the Vice-Chairman of the Council is acting Head of State when there is no Monarch; e.g. if the Royal Family were to become extinct.
For criminal law, the independent Hoge Raad is the highest court of the Netherlands, as well as Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.
The origins of the current Dutch criminal code date back to 1811 when the Netherlands was incorporated into the French Empire.
After the Dutch gained independence, the Napoleonic Code was largely kept but the philosophy underlying these criminal sanctions changed.
The organisation's focus was to make prisons more humane by advocating training for offenders, specifically that of a religious and educational nature.
Gault fundamentally changed the penological landscape because the decision mandated an extension of due process rights to juveniles.
The intellectual groundwork underlying Gault helped catalyze an insurgence of retributive principles, which influenced the penological debate in the Netherlands.
Principles of proportionality permeated into the system as policies which previously advocated the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents grew to disfavour.
After the United States Supreme Court's 1967 decision however, the Dutch reversed course; prosecutors dramatically decreased the number of routine dismissals.
Section 24 of the FPA stresses that a court should consider an offender's ability to pay and the nature of the crime when deciding on an appropriate amount of the fine.
[26] As a result, they contend arrested individuals may plead to crimes they did not commit because the risk of conviction outweighs the transaction fee.
[28] The frequent use of these TBR orders exemplified the rehabilitative culture of the Netherlands following World War II.
Critics lamented their overuse, and argued the Dutch rehabilitative philosophy permitted any offence to be sanctioned by a TBR order.
A shift in penological philosophy over the next two decades dramatically decreased the use of TBR orders; by 1970, only one-tenth of all incarcerated prisoners occupied mental institutions.
Incarceration rates were kept artificially low in this era because the Dutch declined to construct the required number of prisons to suit the demands imposed by their criminal justice system.
[34] Fundamental changes in penal philosophy resulted from the national concern that was registered over these ever-escalating prison waitlists.
[35] The Dutch Ministry of Justice report, Law in Motion, in fact advocated, “[w]hat is at stake is nothing less than the credibility of constitutional government and its democratic and social values…Our highest policy priority is, of necessity, to combat crime by preventive and repressive means…[.
At least one commentator has noted that the enactment of a “three strikes law” has the potential to raise the Dutch incarceration rate to that of American levels.
[22] One of the most expressive features of the Dutch criminal justice system eliminated in this new movement towards retributivism was the one-cell policy.
[42] This change notwithstanding, the Dutch incarceration philosophy stresses the need to minimise the hardships on the prisoner.
[49] In 1998, seventy percent of all juvenile cases disposed of in court resulted in an alternative sentence (community service, training order, or reparations).
[51] The Dutch system does not regard these children as criminally responsible for their actions, and rehabilitative programs have been developed to tend to their delinquency.
STOP was developed to confront the onset of delinquency in juveniles under the age of 12, whereas HALT is for older children.
Under the programs, police officers who encounter minor juvenile indiscretions can contact the offender's parents, or may propose action to be undertaken by social workers.
[58] Most citizens, including those most intimately involved in the criminal justice system—specifically, police officers, prosecutors, and judges—believe that violent crime has increased in the Netherlands.
