Main discussion
To set the basis for this report, it is necessary to explain the differences between Inquisitorial and Adversarial systems.
The inquisitorial system focuses on the notion ‘search for truth’. In this system, which the courts basis is supported by, the courts have an independent judge and jury. The judge takes the major role in the courts and is given a case file before the court case, so they are aware of the background. There is no plea obtained from the defendant and the judge gives the verdict, therefore the trials based on this system are a lot faster. This is the system used in the Netherlands, where the prosecutors are also magistrates. They are referred to as standing magistrates, as they present evidence in the court, whereas the Judges are referred to as sitting magistrates.
Adversarial focuses more on a ‘search for proof’ and relates to the saying ‘innocent without reasonable doubt.’ In these court systems, the Judge has no prior knowledge of the case. There is a jury of 12 members of the public, selected at random. They usually serve in the more major crimes such as murder, rape, burglary or assault, tried in the Crown Courts.
The witnesses also give evidence and can be cross examined, such as in England and Wales.
The barristers in a crown court are usually trained in psychology or have some sort of psychological background. Although they cannot pressure witnesses, they are able to tactfully undermine them and without them realising, they are able to change their minds. An example of this is the case of Dimelo Taylor, in which one witness’s evidence was exempt from court due to her breakdown.
It is often argued that if a Judge already has details on the case, they may have already made up their mind. If the Judge only hears what is said in court, he must base his verdict on the facts given. However, not all case information is given in court, but may be in the report, therefore it can be an advantage to read the report prior to the trial.
England and Wales have 43 police forces which, as stated on the UK Home Office website, employ over 140,000 police officers, 78,000 police staff and 15,600 Police Community Support Officers. This also includes 14,500 special constables, which are unpaid, voluntary workers.
Their core tasks include reducing crime rates and keeping them low, maintaining legal public behaviour, protecting the general public and investigating criminal behaviour.
Since 1994, The Dutch Police has consisted of 25 regional police forces and the National Police Service Agency. The size of each force is dependant on different varying factors. These include the population and level of crime in that area. There are between 600-6000 officers in each.
Each of these forces is divided into districts and sub divisions, the largest of these being Amsterdam with a population of 900,000. This city is assigned 5000 out of the total 54,000 Policing staff.
There is also a Police Support Body and Police Academy.
The core tasks of the Netherlands Police are patrolling the streets, maintaining public order; being responsible to the local mayor, investigating criminal offenses and dealing with emergencies.
Training in both countries is similar, but they do have some major differences.
A big part of the UK training to be in the Police force is fitness. Trainees must meet a given standard or they will fail the whole application. The lowest rank is a Special constable. These are voluntary and unpaid positions in which members of the public can do their bit to help reduce crime. They can work as little as 4 hours a week.
Police community support officers (PCSOs) are the next rank. They are paid and have the same rights and responsibilities as Police Officers, but their roles are different. They work mainly with the general public to reduce local crime and help run programmes with youth groups to prevent criminal behaviour in certain areas.
A Police officer deals with more dangerous crimes in larger areas.
They then can progress to Constable, Sergeant, Inspector, Chief Inspector, Superintendent, Chief Superintendent, Commander, Deputy Assistant Commander, Assistant Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and finally Commissioner if they wish to progress that far.
In the Netherlands, where the criminal justice system has been modelled after that of the French, 95% of Police training is given in the English language. They start as a Voluntary Police Officer, much like the Special constables in the UK. They can then apply to be an Assistant Police Officer, before progressing to Police Officer. The next rank is All-round Police Officer, followed by the Batchelor of Policing which takes 3-4 years. The final rank is Master of Science in Policing.
The training system is obviously far more thorough in the Netherlands with more opportunities for promotion.
There are many differences in the England and Wales vs. Netherlands systems of fighting crime, but it does not mean that one is right and one is wrong. As mentioned previously, the differences allow each force to reflect on their rules and regulations and to improve them if an alternative method proves to have better results. However, what works in one culture may not have the same effect if applied to another.
Surprisingly, the drug and prostitution crime rates in the Netherlands are low.
The Dutch view on drug abuse is a lot more liberal and relaxed than of that in the UK. Drug abuse is tackled by the Ministry of Health as opposed to the Ministry of Justice as it is in the UK.
Since 1976, the Dutch laws allow the use of Cannabis as a controlled, soft drug. Possession and production of the substance are finable offences, however, according to their condolence policy, issued by the Dutch Ministry of Justice; one will not be prosecuted for the possession of a maximum amount of five grams of cannabis, intended for personal use. Also, a maximum of 5 plants can be grown without being prosecuted. In 1991, there were 4,261 criminal drug offenses. Of these 4,261, only 681 were soft drug offenses.
When the drug was legalised, local business saw a demand for the substance and opened what appear as coffee shops, so by keeping in with the law, these shops can sell no more than 5 grams of cannabis to each customer.
Because of the stricter drug laws on hard drugs such as ecstasy and heroin, coffee shops will not sell these substances.
Up until recently in England and Wales, Cannabis has been a Class C substance. However, recent laws have reclassified the drug to the higher, Class B group.
They input a ‘three strike’ system. This means that first the drug user is cautioned with a warning. A second offense would incur a fine of £80. Arrest and prosecution occurs on a third offense, with a maximum prison sentence of 5 years. Six years ago in England and Wales, cannabis accounted for 15% of all seized drugs. However, now it accounts for up to 80%.
Crimes such as shoplifting, burglary, and crimes on vehicles fall under the acquisitive category. The level of this type of crime fell by 55% between 1997 and 2007. (Source: recorded crime figures) This follows the introduction of the UK Drug Interventions Program. The DIP tackles drug crime by working with the offenders whose crimes are drug-related.
According to ‘NTORS at two years’ by the Department of Health, the DI Program means that more than 1,900 offenders who have a history of known drug abuse are able to obtain treatment every month.
The main difference in drug laws is that the Netherlands consider drug abuse as a public health problem, not a criminal once, hence why it comes under the Ministry of Health, unlike England and Wales where it comes under the Ministry of Justice. This idea is shadowed in the drug-abuse help organizations. In England and Wales, the slogan is “just say no” whereas in Holland it reads “just say know.”
As for prostitution, England and Wales seem to have taken advice from the Netherlands laws, and are more interested in helping prostitutes give up their trade rather than imprison them for it. This strategy came together in 2004, and promotes key aims; prevention to stop potential prostitution, tackling demand by removing the opportunity for business, finding alternative routes to help ‘victims’ of the crime, ensuring justice is brought to those people who exploit prostitutes for their own gain and tackling off-street prostitution where victims are usually found to be young or have been trafficked. To tackle the demand for prostitution, the British Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker visited the Netherlands in June 2008. In 2000, the Netherlands introduced a licensing scheme for brothels, which means that prostitution involving consenting adults is not a criminal offence. As published on the Home Office press website following his visit to Amsterdam’s ‘red light district’, famous for its brothels, Mr. Coaker explained that better practice needed to be put into place in England and Wales, to tackle the cause of prostitution as well as its effects, much like he had witnessed in Amsterdam.
Figure 1. Image of De Wallen, Amsterdam. Wikipedia.org, 2009.
The Netherlands are more interested in helping criminals as opposed to imprisoning and punishing them, unlike England and Wales. This may explain why the prison rates in the United Kingdom are considerably higher than the Netherlands, shown in figure 1.
Taken from Walmsley (2002) c/o Pakes, F – Comparative Criminal Justice, page 123.
There are obviously other factors that contribute to the prison rates. Crime levels have little to do with prison rates, as a substantial number of long-term prisoners committed their crimes 10-30 years ago, so it does not reflect the current crime rates.
So other than drug-abuse and prostitution, which has been addressed previously, what are the motions put in place to help reduce street crime as a whole?
The Netherlands are currently tackling crime on public transport, which figures show has increased slowly since 1963, when conductors were removed from buses and trams. The types of crime include vandalism and sexual offenses, i.e. dogging. In 1984, the Netherlands addressed this problem by introducing young unemployed citizens to monitor behaviour on the public transport services. When reviewed again in late 1987, it showed a significant reduction in violent crimes. The measures are still in place to crack down on petty crimes, in particular the vandalism of the vehicles. In spite of this, the implementation of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) has never been considered. In the Netherlands, it is considered to be an invasion of privacy.
The aspects being tackled currently in England and Wales are community safety, drug and alcohol related crime, gun crime and youth crime.
In recent years, the amount of gun crime in England and Wales has dramatically increased. Figure 3 shows the number of recorded crimes involving firearms since 1998.
As we can see, gun crime has increased by almost 6,000 since 1998.
And according to these figures published by the Home Office, there were 59 firearms-related deaths in 2006-07 compared with 49 in the previous year - an increase of 18% in one year.
The gun crime statistics for the Netherlands are considerably lower. Although 85,000-120,000 illegal firearms are owned in the Netherlands, compared to 80,000 licenses firearms, the number of gun crimes in the country over the last 3 years has stayed constant. There have been 30 crimes for every 100,000 people. In Amsterdam, it was 72 per 100,000 showing that the larger cities have more gun crime, such like the UK where London, Birmingham and Manchester show higher rates of gun crime than others, see figure 3.
There are about 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the whole of Britain. The implementation of CCTV in England and Wales has recently evolved. In 20 areas across England and Wales, CCTV cameras have had a microphone added to them. This means that should an operator see a crime being committed, they are able to communicate with the offender. The aim is to reduce crime being committed but so far no statistical data has been recorded. An example of this system is when a person is seen dropping a can of drink on the floor. The operator will tell them to put it in the bin and tell them where the closest bin is. According to the BBC News England website, many people who have been ‘spoken’ to by these cameras have indeed done what it said.
The government's privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner, recently published a paper that reflected the views of 1000 London residents. It portrayed that almost 86% believed the UK society was turning into ‘big brother’ style society, based on the popular reality television programme where people are left in a CCTV camera filled house.
Limitations
There are many limitations to carrying out a comparative study. Sometimes it is possible to find statistics for one year but not the same year for the other country. Another problem is that many crimes go unreported to the police and some reported crimes aren’t actually illegal, so the statistics may not be completely accurate anyway.
People will only report crimes if they know how to, i.e. which phone number to call and whether it was an act of criminal or lawful behaviour. This can also affect the outcome.
However, the main limitation obvious to this report is that of the lack of primary resources. All resources used in this report were secondary, including journals, books and the internet. However, comparing England and Wales to the Netherlands makes it slightly easier as they are so culturally diverse and a lot of information is accessible for each system.
Conclusions
Major conclusions, refer back to original aims, recommendations to change.
In conclusion, the Criminal Justice System of England and Wales is noticeably different to that of the Netherlands. The Dutch laws are considerably more liberal, which seem to work for their relaxed and open culture. Because of this, drugs, alcohol and sex are not taboo subjects as they are in the UK.
The soft approach to drugs works in the Netherlands but if applied to the UK, would not have such a positive affect. As a larger amount of the population in England and Wales uses drugs, legalising Cannabis could create more problems than solutions. Also, due to the fact than more hard drugs are also used in England and Wales, a legalisation of a Class B substance may create the façade that ‘all’ drugs are safe and inadvertently encourage drug usage. This shows that comparative studies are very helpful. They are not just used to determine whether something would work equally as well in another country, but also to disprove that statement.
Also, it can be seen that England and Wales have more laws than the Netherlands. 300 criminal offenses exist in England and Wales compared to
References
Journals
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Chrisje Brants: The Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance: Prostitution in Amsterdam. Journal of Law and Society, 25, number 4, pp. 621-635. December 1998
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Postnote Journal (journal 248) Parliamentary office of science and technology – Science in Court. Parliamentary copyright. October 2005.
Books
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Reichel, Philip. L. (2008) 5th Edition. Comparative Criminal Justice Systems A Topical Approach. Pearson Prentice Hall: New Jersey
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Frances Pakes (2004) Comparative Criminal Justice. Willan Publishing, Devon, England.
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R. Taylor, M. Wasik and R. Leng. Blackstone’s guide to the criminal justice act (2003), Oxford University Press 2004.New York, USA.
Internet
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Home Office (2006/07); Home Office Statistical Bulletin Report http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/17_07_07_crime.pdf
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K. Pease and G. Cox (2005); World Factbook of Criminal Justice Studies http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/wfbcjeng.txt
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National Policy and Legislations in the Netherlands (June 2001) http://rechten.uvt.nl/victimology/Brienenhoegen/BH.html
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UK Home Office, (2009), Crown Copyright, Norwich, UK. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/
