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Netherlands Close Eight Prisons Due To Lack Of Criminals

If I were about 50 years younger, I'd be living there. Of course, I've been a desert rat for 40 years so I'll have to get warm jammies to survive.

In 1997 I attended the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. Late November and cold as the heart of a cat refused a treat. One glorious week, a fascinating place to live. The architecture is just, well, astonishing.

I guess a few hundred years of extra time to make and correct mistakes gives you a bit of an advantage over us post-modern cowboys. I'm sure we'll catch up in a few hundred years. Nobodys perfect:)

The Netherlands is far from perfect but has learned that, however smart people a few centuries ago might have been, new times ask for new rules and new laws. People have to be brave enough to doubt the wisdom of the past and see that sometimes old laws have to be scrapped and new ones added.
 
Sorry America,

we love you all but we have our own criminals and our own problems. Also, if they are American felons they would have to go back to their own country.

Love, Netherlands
Dear Netherlands,

Surely your society would cause these poor misunderstood dears to reform, rehabilitate, and become positive and productive members of society. Good luck, and send postcards.

US
 
The Netherlands is far from perfect but has learned that, however smart people a few centuries ago might have been, new times ask for new rules and new laws. People have to be brave enough to doubt the wisdom of the past and see that sometimes old laws have to be scrapped and new ones added.

Such as?
 
From your link:

"A vast majority of prisoners have committed violent or serious offenses.
At year-end 2012, 88% of inmates had a current or prior violent or serious felony conviction, and 16% were registered sex offenders. A large percentage of inmates have long-term sentences: 25% are serving a "second strike” sentence, and 19% are lifers with the possibility of parole. Smaller proportions are serving a "third strike” sentence (7%) or are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole (4%).

One of our links is seriously wrong. I better look into this some more.

Apples and oranges. It would be implying that those in prison with violence in their past would have committed violence in every crime they were arrested for... and being that most criminals are repeat offenders, it's likely that one of their crimes may have had violence in them while 8 other arrests didn't. I'd be willing to be that their first several crimes didn't and their prison sentences hardened them into the more violent criminal of later years.
 

I do not know, but in hundreds of years there must be things that could be added or changed in any constitution? Who knows, maybe if you ask people would they change the second amendment do add the line "background checks do not violate the right to bear arms".

Who knows, maybe people would love to see the current electoral system changed?
 
Yanno this is pretty cool that we have an intelligent informed person living in the Netherlands discussing this topic. 20 or so odd years ago this kind of direct communication would have would have been a bit more difficult.
 
Your thread sawyer says that California started sending its lower risk prisoners to county prisons. Presumably, the stats in your link then represent only the 33 California state prisons that house mostly violent criminals. Thus, the stats are true, but aren't really comparable to the other link.

Could be. However, the county prisons are overcrowded, so they have been releasing thousands of prisoners early over the last year or so. I don't have the current stats, and they may not exist yet, but it's certainly possible the percentage of non-violent, drug related prisoners is considerably less than what is being discussed by pro-drug supporters.
 
Only a very small part of the Netherlands (the southern part of the province of Limburg) was freed by the Americans, the rest of the Netherlands was largely freed by the Canadians.

But, the entire continent of Europe has a debt of gratitude to all American troops, American workers and American families who's men fought and died for the freedom of everyone in Europe. This debt is also there for Canada, Britain, Russia and all other troops, workers and families who made the same great sacrifices that the Americans made to free us all from the evil Nazi's.

Before The Netherlands could be liberated, we had to kick their asses in Africa, Italy and France...where hundreds of thousands of Americans died.
 
Before The Netherlands could be liberated, we had to kick their asses in Africa, Italy and France...where hundreds of thousands of Americans died.

Yes, and for that we owe the allied forces (of which the Americans were the leading force) a debt of gratitude. As I already stated that we owe that debt of gratitude.
 
Restrictions on every walk of life have created this. I mean heck I can get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt in my own car. While I understand I'm not going to jail for this, it s still just another example of the government (the state one in this case) monitoring every single thing we do and trying to profit from it. Am I threatening to hurt anybody if I die in a fiery accident and didn't have my seat belt on? Isn't that my choice?

One thing I would like to point out though is that the Netherlands does have a higher percentage of their population incarcerated compared to the United States, but no matter how you look at it the US needs to review its law codes and stop using prisons to make money.
 
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A vast majority of prisoners have committed violent or serious offenses.

But that does not mean the catalyst for the violent behavior was drugs.

A guy can be in prison for murder and it's still very much a drug-related crime.

When looking at statistics one must take into consideration what questions are being asked and how.
 
One thing I would like to point out though is that the Netherlands does have a higher percentage of their population incarcerated compared to the United States

LOL hell no. False, not true.. right wing talking points and so on.. You are so far off it is not even funny.

The US has 737 per 100000 inhabitants.. Netherlands has 128 per 100000 inhabitants...

BBC NEWS | In Depth

and many other sources.

The US has the highest per 100000 prison population in the world and the highest amount of in jail of all nations. In fact if we counted all prisoners in the EU then they would be no where near the American total of 2.2+ million incarcerated and over 7 million either in jail or on probation/home arrest/monitoring and so on.
 
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