The combination of long waiting queues for prisoners in Norway's jails, plus the need to shut down parts of some prisons for urgent repair work, has forced Norway to seek alternative solutions outside of its borders.
It is expected Norway will send around 300 prisoners to jails across the Netherlands.
Norway's Minister of Justice, Anders Anundsen, said in a press statement: “We inherited a challenging situation from the last government with too few prison cells. In order to expand capacity in the short term, we have started a dialogue with Dutch authorities on renting prison cells in the Netherlands. At the moment, the backlog in Norway is at 1,300 custodial sentences and there is a great demand for prison space."
The deal involves several hundred prison cells and would allow Norway to avoid overcrowding problems and maintain its standards while prison renovation work costing around 4.4 billion kroner ($700 million) is carried out, said Reuters.
Fred Teeven, Netherlands' state secretary with responsibility for prisons, said in a letter to the Dutch parliament: "In Norway there is a capacity shortage, and right now we have a surplus."
The Netherlands has already leased prison capacity to Belgium for several years, but this is the first deal with a country not on its border.
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