Author
In principle, asylum applicants are not detained in prisons for the sole purpose of their asylum procedure. Asylum applicants may be detained during their procedure.
(Rejected) asylum applicants with psychological problems can be transferred to a specialised institution called Veldzicht, which offers psychological care.[1] The transfer can be carried out voluntarily because the asylum applicant wants intensive psychological help, or involuntarily as a crisis measure. This option is also included in the Bill regarding the return and detention of aliens, which is still in the legislative process.[2] This is only possible when the detention or the asylum applicants centre cannot offer adequate care and at the condition that the asylum applicant is kept separate from (foreign) criminal detainees.
Even though asylum applicants are not detained with criminals or in prisons, the facilities for their detention managed by the Custodial Institutions Service (Dienst Justitiële Inrichtingen, DJI) are very similar.
During the border procedure, adults are detained at the Justitieel Complex Schiphol. They stay in a separate wing at the detention centre. At Schiphol, detained women and men are accommodated together. In its 2023 report on the periodic review of the Netherlands, the CPT considered that women should, as a matter of principle, be accommodated in an area which is physically separate from that holding men at the same establishment.[3] The Minister did not adopt this recommendation because he believes that segregating men and women only makes the regime stricter and because the ‘common areas’ are already essentially separated.[4]
Territorial detention takes place in Rotterdam for men and in Zeist for women, families with children and unaccompanied minors.
In November 2020 and July 2022, the Council of State ruled that DC Rotterdam was to be considered a special detention facility within the meaning of Article 16 of the Return Directive.[5] The underlying intention of Article 16 is to ensure that immigrants are separated from criminal detainees in detention. In its 2011 visit report, the CPT was critical of the fact that immigration detention in the Netherlands was not covered by specific rules reflecting the administrative nature of immigration detention. Instead, deprivation of liberty of foreign nationals in detention centres was governed by the same rules and restrictions as those applicable to persons detained under criminal law in prisons. More than a decade later, in its 2023 periodic review, this situation remains unchanged, and the same prison legislation still applies to persons held in territorial detention: the Penitentiary Principles Act (Penitentiaire beginselenwet) continues to regulate all aspects of detention, notably when it comes to the applicable regime and restrictions.[6] Moreover, in its 2023 report on the periodic review of the Netherlands, the CPT recalled its position, according to which a prison is – by definition – not a suitable place in which to detain someone who is neither suspected nor convicted of a criminal offence. With regard to the use of the same legal framework in this regard, the CPT has made it clear that care should be taken in the design and layout of such premises to avoid, as far as possible, any impression of a carceral environment.[7]
The three centres have the following capacity:
| Average detention capacity in the Netherlands: September – December 2024 | |||
| Detention centre | Maximum capacity | Maximum capacity immediately available | Occupancy |
| Schiphol | 473 | 414 | 359 |
| Rotterdam | 639 | 532 | 477 |
| Zeist | 369 | 228 | 186 |
Source: DJI[8]
[1] For more information see the website of Veldzicht: https://www.ctpveldzicht.nl/.
[2] Bill regarding return and detention of aliens (2015-2016), 34309/2.
[3] Report to the Government of the Netherlands on the periodic visit to the Kingdom of the Netherlands carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 10 to 25 May 2022, CPT/Inf (2023) 12, 23 June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3vnTE65, 28.
[4] Response of the Kingdom Authorities to the Report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), 8 June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3H5SMFC.
[5] Council of State, ECLI:NL:RVS:2020:2795, 25 November 2020, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3OCrOK7 and ECLI:NL:RVS:2022:2103, 21 July 2022, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/3wfq2IA.
[6] Report to the Government of the Netherlands on the periodic visit to the Kingdom of the Netherlands carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 10 to 25 May 2022, CPT/Inf (2023) 12, 23 June 2023, available at: https://bit.ly/3vnTE65, 25.
[7] Ibid, 26.
[8] DJI, Capacity and occupancy statistics, January – December 2024, available in Dutch at: https://bit.ly/4fIYWdP.