Staff shortages at the Dutch youth detention centres are putting detainees and staff under “persistent and serious” pressure and threatening their safety, three government inspectorates have warned.
Around 450 young people who have been convicted of a crime or are suspected of one are held in the country’s six youth detention centres, known as JJIs. The centres take young people who were aged between 12 and 23 when they committed the offence, though most are between 14 and 21.
Unlike adult prisons, they are meant to focus on education and treatment rather than punishment, to reduce the risk of reoffending.
In a letter to junior justice minister Claudia van Bruggen, the justice, education and health and youth care inspectorates said young people held in the centres are the victims of an “ever-increasing, worrying” erosion of care, treatment, education and daily activities. They called for an urgent action plan.
“Temporary emergency measures such as a shortened daily programme have now become standard practice,” said Elske van Amelsfort, chief inspector at the justice and security inspectorate. “That is why an action plan is needed from the state secretary in the short term.”
By law, young people in JJIs should spend 77 hours a week in group activities. Emergency measures introduced in 2023 set a reduced floor of 62 hours. The inspectorates said the centres are not meeting the requirements of either, because daily programmes are regularly cut back or cancelled at short notice when staff are unavailable.
As a result, young people spend too much time in their rooms, miss school and leave, and cannot always contact their families. Young people told inspectors they found it frustrating to be kept in their rooms, often without warning, and that repeatedly broken promises made it harder to stay motivated.
Warning signs
The inspectorates also said staff are becoming less experienced and more overstretched. Staff are regularly moved at short notice to units where they do not know the young people, which makes it harder to spot warning signs in time. The constant turnover of supervisors is causing frustration and tension among both young people and staff.
The inspectorates have raised concerns about the centres since 2019. The decision to phase out freelance staff in 2025 made the staffing crisis worse, the letter said.
In July, children’s ombudsman Margrite Kalverboer said there had been barely any improvement since the inspectorates’ previous warning a year earlier. She said almost all children’s rights were being violated in the youth detention centres.
