Yesterday I went to the monumental Dome Prison in the Dutch city of Haarlem to see a film. Inaugurated in 1901, this enormous panopticon-style construction became one of more than 20 Dutch prisons to close in the past ten years. It’s not the only prison that ended up serving much nicer purposes. In this case, a cultural center.
Over the past 20 years, the prison population in the Netherlands has decreased by more than 40%. A model that the current British Prisons Minister, James Timpson, has described as a source of inspiration for his country. At the other end of the spectrum, the UK has the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe and is experiencing an unprecedented prison crisis.
