Developments in the Netherlands
By
JON As has been told in the
former Newsletter, there has been a series of court cases with remarkably high
sentences demanded by the prosecutor and remarkably mild sentences given by the
court. Thus, the prosecutor appealed and the story went on. Trends
We
see a trend in these and in a lot of other cases. This trend has the following
steps. 1.
Whoever has committed an immoral act, even if its concerns not touching any real
child but only downloading illegal images, will be tested by a psychiatrist and
a psychologist to study his mentality. By the way, one may refuse this, but most
people do not refuse. 2.
Everyone who says to have pedophilic feelings will be declared to have a mental
distortion, pedophilia, and often also a cognitive distortion and a distortion
of the conscience, even if the tests showed not any other distortions.
Especially egosyntone pedophilia (i.e. the person does not see his
feelings as a great problem) and the absence of a sense of shame will lead to
the conclusion of a severe personality disorder. In any case, treatment is seen
as necessary. 3.
In any case, the risk of recidivism is estimated as very high. In one case, the
psychologist declared under oath that this risk was 100% in that case – which
is impossible: nobody can be able to foresee human behavior with 100% certainty. 4.
So, always treatment is seen as necessary. Sometimes this may be an ambulant
treatment, to be started after the period of imprisonment, as a condition for
the period of the parole. In other cases, the court declares that a closed
clinic must give a forced treatment. 5.
Once in treatment, the person is forced to change his feelings, his fantasies,
his behavior and his thoughts. Who does not do this, will be declared as not
treated and will be kept in the clinic. Mostly, every two years the court will
see a report and an advise from the clinic. As long as the treatment is not
successful, it will go on for the next two years. 6.
If after four or six years the clinic reports that there is still no result of
the treatment, the person will be declared untreatable and will be sent to a
long stay unit, which in fact is a life long imprisonment. Two cases
In one of the cases, the reports said that the man was “a normal man in every respect”, except his pedophilic feelings, which made him nevertheless have a severe personality disorder. The man had one charge of sexual abuse of a boy. Still, no forced treatment was advised. But before the court, both ‘experts’ changed their advise and declared under oath that the risk of recidivism was “towering” and “100%”, and that forced treatment in a clinic was necessary. This
was in front of the Court of Appeal. The lower court had not convicted the man
to a forced treatment, and he already was accepted by an ambulant institute for
treatment, but the Court of Appeal convicted the man to a higher sentence and to
forced treatment. In
another case, a man was not convicted to forces treatment in a clinic. He
only had to follow the instructions of his probation officer. This officer
declared him dangerous for society, went to the civil court, and demanded that
the man should be sent to a clinic because he was dangerous and mentally ill. A
psychiatrist had declared the same. The law allows a judge to sent such a person
to a clinic for forced treatment. Because there was still no place in the
clinic, specific for moral offenders, he had to wait in the closed section of a
psychiatric hospital – without any treatment, except lust-diminishing pills.
Thus: not convicted to forced treatment by the criminal judge, he
nevertheless has been forced to such a treatment according to civil law. In Dutch, we have a
proverb, borrowed from Multatuli’s famous book, which reads: |