For lack of prisoners, Netherlands closes 24 prisons

It is so much empty space that they are even importing inmates: there are 1000 Norwegian prisoners serving time in cells lent in the Netherlands

Scream inside a Dutch prison, and you'll hear an echo. The number of detainees in the country fell 27% between 2011 and 2015, and 43% in the last decade. According to the most recent World Prison Brief (WBF) report of January 2014, there are only 10,000 people incarcerated in the Netherlands - government figuresspeak of 12,300 in that year and 11,000 in 2015. There are approximately 57detainees For every 100 thousand inhabitants of the country, where the rate of recidivism is only 10%. Around here, things are very different. Every 100 thousand Brazilians, 300 are in prison: 622 thousand people are imprisoned, or three times the population of Vitória (ES). This is the fourth largest prison population in the world in absolute terms, and 34th in proportion. 47% of former detainees released again commit crimes within a maximum of two years.

The reduction of crime compensates: 19 chains were closed between 2013 and 2015 - another five were deserted at the end of last year. Among the solutions to fill the vacant space are lending vacancies to neighboring countries - Norway sent a thousand prisoners to the Netherlands in 2015 - and until the penitentiaries were transformed into hotels. 2600 professionals associated with the prison system have lost their jobs since 2013.

The decade of crime decline in the Netherlands is against the global trend: between 2000 and 2015, the world's prison population increased by 20% , compared with 18% of the total population. Despite this, there are other exemplary countries: in Sweden, the 5.7 thousand prisoners of 2004 became only 4,5 thousand in 2014.  To compare, between 2000 and 2015 the prison population of Brazil increased by 450%. You can better understand the problems and contradictions of our prisons in the latest video in SUPER's "2 Minutes to Understand" series.