The Prison Service invites prisoners to the Netherlands for an all expenses paid holiday while school’s out

VeenhuizenVeenhuizen, The Netherlands.Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB scanpix

Short-term detainees who take an education during their sentence have been asked to apply to the ‘Norwegian’ prison in the Netherlands.

The offer to take a stay in the Netherlands during school holidays was presented in a new letter from the Prison Service, according to the VG newspaper.

Because they are busy with studies, inmates taking education aren’t usually among the target group for transfer to what has been referred to as the ‘luxury prison’ of Norgerhaven in the Netherlands.

However, the education course in prisons follows the school routine, which means several free weeks during the summer.

‘This offer is applicable to inmates who, for various reasons, can’t be transferred to Norgerhaven without consent, for example, because they are following a course of education, but are open for transfer for a shorter period, as during the school summer holiday’, wrote the deputy director of the Norwegian Criminal Justice Directorate, Jan-Erik Sandlie.

Sandlie’s letter said that, among other things, the goal is to increase the number of inmates at Norgerhaven, to free up places in Norway for shutdown and refurbishment during the summer months.

Justice Minister, Per-Willy Amundsen, believes that the lease of Norgerhaven has worked according to its original intention, which was to reduce a queue of prisoners. But he dislikes the idea that a stay in the Netherlands is being portrayed as a summer holiday.

‘This is completely unheard of for me. Immediately, it doesn’t appear good procedure, or appropriate, to create the impression that Norgerhaven is a summer holiday camp. Incarceration is not a summer holiday’, he said.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today