Netherlands Leniency has its upsides but it is no magic bullet

Earlier this year, before he became the UK justice minister, James Timpson described how Britain should follow the Dutch example of milder sentencing to help solve the prisons crisis.

- Senay Boztas

"They have shut half their prisons not because people are less naughty in Holland," he told Channel 4. "It's because they have a different way of sentencing, which is community sentencing, so people can stay at home, keep their jobs, keep their homes, keep reading their children bedtime stories, and it means they are far less likely to commit crime again.

A custodial sentence is not always the right thing." But in the Netherlands, those comments evoked surprise in some quarters, underlining that there are no easy solutions.

The country has experienced an escalation in drug-related crime and has a new rightwing government keen to be seen as tough on law and order. Although overall crime has dropped in the past decade, figures such as the Rotterdam mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, are sounding the alarm about a wave of violent, drugrelated criminality.

A lawyer, journalist and the brother of a crown witness were murdered in the course of the sixyear "Marengo" gangland trial, and justice ministers have talked about a breakdown in law and order and announced a clampdown on "narco-terrorism" and higher sentences.

This year there have been reports and parliamentary questions on the Netherlands' overcrowded prisons.