If someone was to ask me a few years ago as to what would be my top few parameters while choosing a country to live as an Expat, I would have with ease listed cost of living, healthcare, tax structure to name a few and the ‘safety & security’ factor would have never surfaced on my priority listing due to my fatalistic thought of- ‘It can never ever happen to me ‘! The famous Murphy’s Law, a rule that states, “If something can go wrong, it will and usually at the worst time’ would have been my most convenient excuse made even without a hitch to cover up that non acceptance and complacent attitude in the pretext of false high optimism.
As someone rightly puts it forth – ‘Safety isn’t just a slogan, it’s a way of life’.
Under such a scenario, if I was to come across an article with captions in bold mentioning- ‘Dutch Prisons are closing’, it would certainly and unabashedly be the most welcoming news of my life! The Netherlands have gone to an extent that apart from closing down on the number of prisons, they have also started leasing the prisons to other countries such as Belgium and Norway. A former prison in the Dutch town of Roermond has been turned into a hotel, the vacancy rate is so high that even after leasing there is enough margin for such unbelievable ideas! Wow
Under the pretext of the same, there was yet another exhilarating article I stumbled upon very recently following Mr. Trump, the American President’s new policy on banning the inflow of immigrants into the country. The article captioned in bold – ‘Nederland opens up its empty prisons to the refugees ‘. Wow, yet again! Such a move would undoubtedly give anyone goose bumps and a reason to believe that world can indeed be a beautiful and a safe place to live in.
A reality check to digest this unbelievable fact that somewhere in this world heaven exists, I further started digging into the statistics to validate what I just pleasantly stumbled upon.
Reasons for the high vacancy rate of Dutch prisons
1. With a population of around 17 million people, only 11,600 of them are in jail!
2. Due to this very tiny proportion compared with most of the other countries, prison numbers have been falling steadily since 2004. Eight prisons closed in 2009, 19 prisons in 2014.
Reasons for the closing of the Dutch prisons, according to Ard van der Steur, (Dutch minister, Security and justice) are:
Ø Shorter sentence granted by the judge.
Ø Decline in serious crime rate (crime rate has declined about 0.9% on average every year). The official figures, according to national statistics office CBS (2014 – 2015) indicates:
a. Recorded crime was down by nearly 5%.
b. Violent theft and burglary fell by 7.3%
c. Sexual offences were down by 8.1%
d. Drug offences reduced by 9.1%
e. Sex offences and violent theft or burglary were both reduced by more than 40%.
f. Rape fell by 52.3%, although the number increased by 1.3% in 2015.
It clearly highlights that Netherlands leads for feeling safe and has high levels of perceived personal safety as they show high percentage of people who firmly disagreed with the ‘always concerned about my safety and security’ statement.
Possible reasons leading to decline in the Crime rate
Living in this country for the past few years and being closely associated with the local residents here, following is a collation of the possible attributes encouraging the decline of serious crimes:
1. ‘Fine’ Country:
Netherlands is indeed very fine -Fine with respect to its natural beauty, liveability, accessibility and it can go on but at the same time this country is also known for its harsh penalty fines too in the advent of rules not followed! The offenses are classified under six categories and have varying fines attached to it. Under Dutch law, repeat offenders will receive more serious consequences. If criminals are found guilty of more than 10 offenses within the last 5 years, they may be required to face custodial sentences for as long as two years with additional psychological treatment to reduce recurrences once the sentence is over.
2. Robust socio economic security:
The propounded ‘Basic Income’ plan, weeds out poverty from the grass root level exterminating the various crimes resulting due to the lack of basic necessities in life.
3. Liberal drug Laws & Legalized Prostitution:
The recommendation to decriminalize the usage of drugs and not seeing it as a crime rather considering it as an issue relating to personal physiological problem. An attempt is made to help such people by accommodating such minds in work, in a way distracting them from the problem. The ‘Red Light District’ in Amsterdam is one of the famous tourist attraction spot and the prostitution is legal here.
4. Robust security systems:
One example to highlight this point would be the traffic regulating speed cameras in the form of hidden camera, mobile cameras, moving cameras etc! You really can’t afford to make a mistake and no longer want to believe that ‘Rules are meant to be broken ‘.
5. Ageing Population:
The old generation is in love with this country and carry immense pride in just the way they are! They leave no stones unturned in ensuring that the Gen Next continues this legacy forward by preserving their culture, their language, their nature, their hygiene, their pride etc.
6. Family Bonding:
Yet another article doing the rounds very recently in the social media, is that the ‘Dutch parents raise the happiest kids in the world’. An encouraging point to ponder amongst the many listed in there was that the Dutch people believe in spending a lot of family time together (family holidays, family brunch on festive occasions) and they make it a point that come what may, they would definitely invest their quality time in a family breakfast each day!
7. Let’s Go Dutch:
This famous saying comes perhaps from the fact that the people here are very straight in what they have to speak out. Just too straight and clear which may sound ruthless but over a period of time, one realises it’s better to be a cutthroat rather than a sweet candy!
Gone are the days when a phone call from our near & dear ones asking how were we doing was meant to specifically know if we were in the pink of our health.
In today’s world, everything still remains the same but with an unpleasant forced inclusion in our priority list which is being safe from an unexpected and an unprecedented risk. Being safe is indeed being fine as rightly put forth by Jodi Rell – ‘’At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security’.
References:
[1]Readers Digest International ,Nov 2016
[http://www.gfk.com/fileadmin/user_upload/website_content/Global_Study/Images/Infographics_Fullsize/Safety-concerns_Countries_Web-RGB-GfK-Infographic.jpg ]
