And again Edwin is in jail. Why doesn’t he get help?

Through the open hatch in the thick steel cell door Balt arrestant Edwin V. (58) his fist. « I have to be released Jan! » He tells his lawyer Jan Vlug. « I have to pick up my shopping cart with things. And if I don’t get free, I’ll kick you! »

On the outside of the brown-orange door of the detention room, so that Edwin cannot see it, a yellow post-it is stuck on the hatch. An agent with ballpoint pen in fat -scratched letters with underlines wrote a warning: « Beware of poo everywhere. Also on the inside of the hatch. » On one of the walls in the cell is ‘112’ written, in Poep. Edwin was not transferred to a clean place, because it is already the second cell within a day that he has smeared in this way.

« You don’t understand goddamn that a lot of pain is being hurt, » he shouts through the hatch to his lawyer. « That I don’t know by who, but that it happens! »

Lawyer Vlug tries to explain to him that the examining magistrate will soon visit the formal pre-guidance. She must make a decision about his custody. Edwin, calm for a moment: « But Jan, I can’t receive the examining magistrate here in the shit? You understand that, that is not possible. »

A yellow post-it is stuck on the outside of the detention cell door: ‘Watch out. Everywhere shit ‘

As soon as the preliminary interview has ended and Edwin starts screaming again, an agent with blue rubber disposable gloves closes the hatch. He sighs: « This man does not belong here. »

« I am shocked, » says Vlug, waiting for the examining magistrate. Since 2011 he has assisted Edwin in 31 files as a counselor. That is without the dozens of picket reports, such as this one, thirteen in the past two years, having to go to the police station after an arrest. Vlug: « Like now, I have never seen him. This is really going wrong again. »

Bipolar disorder

It is the first Thursday of April, at the police station in Zwolle. Two days earlier, Edwin V. was arrested for shoplifting. As he was picked up by the police much more often after theft, order disturbances, violence, violation of honor, not complying with a police order or street ban, and so on. This time he had stolen food at the Albert Heijn and a T-shirt at a clothing store. « Why did you do that? », The police had asked him at the desk on Wednesday. Edwin, approachable at that time: « I was cold. »

For the police and the judiciary, Edwin falls into the ‘frequent offender’ and ‘confused person’ category. But Edwin has, according to his medical file, also a bipolar disorder, suffers from untreated traumas and is addicted to speed and coke or what he can get. He is homeless and psychiatric patient, and is arrested time and time again for crimes because he does not get the mental health care he needs.

Lawyer quickly heralded two years ago NRC The alarm bell about psychiatric patients who commit crimes without getting the necessary help. NRC visited one of the earlier lawsuits against Edwin. The lawyer already predicted that it would go wrong again with him. He concluded about ‘pumping around’ patients like Edwin in the criminal justice system: « It’s bad, it’s stupid, it’s inhuman and it’s pure waste of money. »

Chairman Elmy Elderman of the Overijssel District Court arrives together with a clerk in the cell block at the police station in Zwolle. Just like the police, the judiciary, addiction care, the probation service, the GGD and other committed authorities, the judiciary with psychiatric patients like Edwin also runs against a wall time and time again. Everyone agrees: criminal law is not the solution. People like Edwin need a roof over their heads and psychiatric treatment. Yet again and again it is not possible to get that shelter done for a long time.

The examining magistrate gives NRC Permission to be present at the beforehand, which normally takes place behind closed doors. Yvonne Agteresch of addiction recess addiction care also joined the company at the police station. She has been trying to find Edwin for six years and on if it has been put out of an institution or is refused somewhere.

The ‘Poep’ hatch will open again. Edwin is quiet. The examining magistrate explains him through the hatch: « The question is whether we will let you get stuck for fourteen days, but it is also about another question: is there a place in a clinic? »

‘I want to be free’

The solution that the people present have come up with: Edwin must go to one of the four Penitentiary Psychiatric Centers (PPCs) in the Netherlands, prison departments with 24 hours of psychiatric care. If he has relaxed there with antipsychotics and without drugs, he can be treated on the basis of voluntaryness in a clinic in Almere who was willing to record him.

« Top, » Edwin responds. Just. Until his emotion changes again: « I don’t want to be at all! I want to be free. Listen what I say. This is fucking important. This is my life. » And to his lawyer: « You have to help me Jan, don’t fuck! » A cop who Edwin has known since his childhood, when he was still a promising football talent, knows how to calm him down.

Edwin has been issued by the court for more than fifteen years and always extended care authorization. That means that he can be forced to be admitted and even get compulsive medication if he is a danger to himself or others due to his psychiatric disorders. Yet that does not happen and he is always put on the street.

His last homeless, manic period of crimes starts at the end of last year. The police are holding him the day after Christmas because he is spraying a fire extinguisher empty on a car that is not on fire. He ends up in the police cell. After a night, the police send him home with a summons to appear in court on March 25 this year.

A cop who Edwin has known since his childhood, when he was still a promising football talent, knows how to calm him down

Already before that lawsuit serves, things go wrong again. On January 28, he will be a bike and groceries. Again the ritual of keeping, taking to the detention house, locking up, losing lawyer, suspect interrogations and in favor of the public prosecutor. Edwin stays behind the bars until a fast -court session on 12 February. He is sentenced to a prison sentence that is exactly long enough to get stuck until the court case of 25 March that is already planned. There is no place in a PPC at that time, so he has been in a normal cell for two months without treatment.

Naked on the street

On March 25, the court will impose a conditional punishment for the destruction of the car with the fire extinguisher. No recording in a clinic is arranged. Edwin roams the street again homeless. He goes to ‘De Inn’ in Zwolle, a social shelter that provides a bed, a shower, and food. Psychiatric help is missing. It goes wrong again within a few days.

On March 31 he walks naked through the center of Zwolle and the police will hold him due to violation of honor. After a night in jail, the police let him go again. Then there is a bright spot. Yvonne Agteresch of addiction care finds a place for him at GGZ institution Dimence in Zwolle. On April 1, he has a roof over his head in an institution for psychiatric patients. That takes one night.

Edwin will be arrested again on Wednesday 2 April. This time not on the street, but in the GGZ institution itself. Because of mistreatment of two of his nurses. Lawyer Vlug: « He denies it. But he is also heavily psychotic. So say it. » The problem is that Edwin is not only a psychiatric patient, but also addicted. That is why Dimence is not obliged to keep him as a patient. The practitioners judge that the institution is not equipped to maintain Edwin with his addiction and aggressive behavior as a client. Instead of transferring him to a place with a higher security level for heavier patients and forced medication on the basis of his care authorization, the Edwin clinic. Vlug: « Then you get the reason that his behavior is not caused by his disorder, but because of his addiction. But that’s just an excuse. » On Thursday, April 3, he is again unaccompanied and without supervision on the street.

Two days later, the first Saturday of April, he again causes nuisance on the street. The police intervene and impose an area ban on him. He will break this within 24 hours, so that he is arrested again and taken to the police station. « What do you want yourself? » ask the agents. « A car to drive to the South of France, » replies Edwin. And yes, he ends up on the street again, with his shopping cart with things, on his way to the next arrest. It takes place after the theft of groceries and the T-shirt, on Tuesday 8 April.

Consultation in the canteen

In ten days, Edwin was arrested four times, once admitted to a clinic, and always put on the street. Dozens of agents had to interfere with him, just like several public prosecutors, a examining magistrate, his lawyer and various care providers of the Dimence, probation service and the GGD-who came to judge him several times on the desk.

Between Edwin’s outbursts, the examining magistrate becomes convinced of the previously agreed route during the conversation with him. She decides to detain in a PPC. This provisional detention can be suspended within two weeks as soon as Edwin is able to go to the clinic in Almere. That’s the plan. Now the place in a PPC.

The canteen of the police station does a temporary service as a consultation room for the examining magistrate and its clerk, Yvonne Agteresch of the probation service and addiction care, lawyer Jan Vlug, and the agents involved. In the background, Edwin shouts in his cell or suddenly sings ‘True Colors’ by Cyndi Lauper.

« He has a care authorization, which remains the most important point, » says lawyer Vlug, who finds it astonishing how his client is being put on the street for years. Judge magistrate Elderman agrees: « I was shocked that he has been admitted between 25 March and now and was put out of it and thought a word that I will not repeat here. Because guys, hold him for the hell. »

Edwin must be admitted, everyone agrees. « Anyone else doubts there? » Asks the right-hand commissioner rhetorically. Yet it almost fails. The procedure cannot be handled on Thursday afternoon, April 10, because there is no assessment psychiatrist available. The agents call the authorities that are all needed to get someone placed in a PPC. Thanks to the presence of examining magistrate Elderman and probation officer Agteresch, who interfere with the conversations by telephone of an agent, managers are called and exceptions are made. Just before five o’clock, if the office hours threaten to ensure that Edwin has to stay an extra night in the police cell, there is green light for placement in a PPC. Then all four PPCs in the Netherlands appear to be full. No place anyway. The only solution: Edwin does go to a PPC, but there is only an isolation cell free. It is the only place in the Netherlands where he is welcome.

The examining magistrate: « It is shocking that there are simply no places. »

« It is degrading, » says the probation officer.

Now, more than a week later, Edwin was allowed to leave the isolation cell and is in a normal cell in the PPC in Zwolle. It is not yet known when he should appear before his last crimes.

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