As a community service ‘pruning, pruning, pruning’ in food garden De Kleine Earth: ‘This also costs me my freedom, eight hours a day’

Scraping sounds between the cocks and chirping. Three men are creating earth in the spring sun. In the food garden behind them, older volunteers are weeding and sowing. The small earth in Boxtel grows vegetables for the local food bank. A cheerfully painted barometer learns that about five hundred mouths are fed every year.

In contrast to the elderly people, the three men are not out of free will here. Under the supervision of a ‘workmaster’ of Probation Netherlands, they perform a community service sentence. « This is my first day. After this I still have a day and a half to go, » says the Boomlange Nordian (25) with a soft g.

In 2021 or 2022, Nordian is not entirely sure, he was caught for driving without a driver’s license. It was not the first time that Nordian – Zwarte Hoodie, Jogging Pants and Sturdy Work Shoes – came into contact with Justice. He received a community service twice before and was also detained. He dismisses that community service is not a real punishment, as is sometimes stated in the political and social discussion. « This also costs me my freedom, eight hours a day. »

In the past two and a half weeks, Julian combined a regular job with the community service sentence and made working days of sixteen hours

De Kleine Earth is a work sentence of Probation Netherlands. « They have been doing the heavy work for us from the start, » says garden leader Maria van der Hoogen. When volunteers wanted to make a food garden in 2017 from the overgrown site of an Eterenkele Centrum for Sustainability Advice, the probation service came to the rescue with ‘pruning, pruning, pruning’.

Nowadays, convicted people perform community service four days a week, 52 weeks a year. Exciting to work with convicted people, the food garden volunteers no longer find it. That quickly, says Van der Hoogen, who is very positive about the help of the probation service. « We have not had one incident between work stuffing and volunteers. »

Fat balls

Every year, around thirty thousand community service sentences are imposed in the Netherlands for all kinds of criminal offenses: from traffic and violent crimes to drug and moral cases. That number of the coming years is expected to grow considerably. Due to the jammed case law and crowded prisons, the Public Prosecution Service set the new course in February to take as many ‘light’ cases as possible, without the intervention of the judge. Given that the OM is not allowed to impose fines and community service penalties, it is to be expected that the nearly six thousand community service sentences that it imposed by penal decisions in 2023 will rise sharply.

In addition, the political community service sentences also want to use more broadly. For example, in March the House of Representatives accepted an amendment from Joost Slaster (D66) to introduce a replacement community service for people who do not pay their fine. Now, for that reason, thousands of people end up in jail every year.

In a shed of the probation service Oost-Brabant on an industrial estate in Rosmalen, Employee Mariska Monk of those extra task prayers is not hot or cold. « We make that appropriate. » A grid with colors is open on her screen. The probation service says he has no waiting lists. « Someone can get to work within two weeks after the intake. »

People with a work sentence have done to society something and then give something back

A glass wall separates Monk’s office from a working hall, where the radio scales and seven task prisoners with boxes and stickers fat balls and bird houses label for a fauna company. Just like the ‘outdoor project’ De Kleine Earth, this is its own work project of the probation service. For this ‘interior project’, convicted persons with physical and mental limitations are eligible.

In addition to these own projects, Oost-Brabant has around 160 work locations where task trips work without the guidance of the probation service, from thrift stores, care and community centers to an animal shelter. « Not everyone is suitable for those external projects, » says Monk. For example, sex offenders and perpetrators of violent crimes are one no go. This also applies to people with limited intelligence or certain appearance – such as tattoos in the face.

Around 1,750 people perform a community service in East Brabant every year. Monk and her colleagues try to let them complete the sentence – that percentage is 74 percent nationwide. « I always say: For me it is my children, I just don’t love them. I give them a piece of peace, rhythm, regularity and very clear frameworks. »

The most important thing is that the task trips arrive on time in the morning: no later than eight o’clock. « That rule is rock hard, » says Monk. In addition, convicted people must be experienced and respectfully behaved among themselves and against the probation staff. « Not everyone can do that, but we try to teach them that. »

Recidivism

In the more than twenty years that she has been working at the probation service, Monk has learned to read clients. The one benefits from authoritarian behavior, the other not. The one is best left alone all day, the other needs a pat on the back. Monk, she says, has fallen in love with the work sentence. In terms of work it is dynamic: every day goes differently. And she believes in the usefulness. « If someone gets a prison, that is not only the problem of those. People have children and his breadwinner, or they have a home and work that they can lose. If you can prevent that with a work sentence, that is a profit. »

For society, the community service sentence has two benefits compared to a prison sentence. First of all: lower costs. For example, Leiden University calculated that a community service will cost 73 euros per day compared to 259 euros for a day in jail. Moreover, task travels make the mistake less often than people who have served a prison sentence. Figures from the WODC research institute from the Ministry of Justice show that 47 percent of people with a prison sentence will recurrence within two years, versus 28 percent of those who completed a community service sentence.

Leiden University calculated that a community service costs 73 euros per day; a day in the cell 259 euros

Against that background, the Netherlands Probation has been arguing for several years for doubling the maximum community service, from 240 to 480 hours. That plea has landed in an initiative bill – which proposes 360 hours.

« Recidivism is our main goal, » says team leader Marthe Halvemaan, who previously worked at Rabobank. She wanted to do something with more social benefits and nowadays works satisfactorily in the probation service in East Brabant. « Clients who have committed a crime are not part of a team, not part of the society, they have lost their way, » says Halvemaan. « If they come here, have to be on time, become part of the group with which they work and get a bond with the Werkmeester, they walk outside differently. »

Project manager Charif Souhail recognizes this. He points out that convicts of the probation service undergo a punishment, but that the goal is to « help as many people as possible through the work sentence ». In this way it is also listened to what a convicted person would prefer to do. « We can easily let someone’s work sentence fail by having the person do something that he hates or what he cannot do. But we don’t stand for that. »

Heavy

Take the twenties Julian. He received a fifty -hour community service for a crime that he wants to keep for himself. Recently, the two years he would be under the supervision of the probation service were converted into a community service of another fifty hours. At his own request, he was allowed to perform it in the same place as the first: at the community center of the Broad Bossche School, in which a primary school, childcare and theater are also located.

« Because I enjoyed it here, I asked if I could go here again, » says Julian. « But that still feels like punishment, because it is tough. » Last two and a half weeks he combined a regular job in logistics with the community service sentence and made working days of sixteen hours. That was « bite through, » he says. « I helped here to build rooms for events, zemen, fill the bar and sweep the schoolyard. »

In the canteen of the neighborhood center, team leader Halvemaan says that this is a textbook example of the usefulness of community service sentences. « People with a work sentence have done something to society and then do something back. Whether they are working here, renovating food or puncturing waste along the road. »

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