Tendencies of Overuse in Criminal Law Policy and Criminal Law Enforcement in the Netherlands

Summary

INTRODUCTION: TENDENCY TO A ‘TOUGH IN CRIME’ POLICY WITH SOME EXCEPTIONS

In order to shed light on aspects of the use and overuse in the criminal law system, policy and law enforcement in the Netherlands, one can see several more or less dualistic developments. The major trend is clear: there is a strong call to emphasize the possibilities for criminal liability, criminal prosecution and sanctioning. The general approach is highly politically driven; politicians want to be ‘tough on crime’. For instance, as a reaction to terrorism, this tendency might be understood as being driven by developments in society. The call for a certain change in substantive criminal law and in the possibilities for investigating computer crimes is louder nowadays as well. This accentuated use of criminal law does not necessarily need to be characterized as ‘overuse’. Other aspects and changes tend more towards this qualification, especially where changes in criminal law politics are driven by other factors than what is necessary within a rational-pragmatic, evidence-based approach and policy.

This focus has dominated changes in legislation and criminal law politics in the Netherlands over the last decades in a way that has been characterized as a development towards a ‘totaal strafrecht’; a firm and omnipresent criminal law enforcement that at any time and in any situation guarantees the effective application of severe and strict criminal law sanctions, including possibilities for further effective control of behaviour of the criminal after the execution of sanctions. Although this tendency is not typical for the Netherlands alone, the impression is that there is more focus on this policy in the Netherlands than in other European countries. The call for a ‘tough on crime’-policy is not evidencebased on higher crime rates in the Netherlands. On the contrary, crime rates are falling and people, if questioned in detail, even feel more safe in the Dutch society. But these (‘alternative’?) facts hardly seem to ‘confuse’ the mind of policymakers who are convinced that criminal law enforcement should be more firm and strict to do justice to the ‘legitimate rights and interests of victims of crime’ and to ensure that the Dutch society as a whole will be more ‘safe’.