Junior justice minister Fred Teeven has scrapped plans to allow more convicted criminals to undergo electronic tagging to avoid jail.

The previous government was keen to introduce house arrest for people facing jail terms of up to four months. The move was one way of coping with the shortage of jail cells.
But now there is a surplus of prison cells and the plan will not go ahead. ‘It is too ridiculous to think that people are sitting out their sentences at home with a beer in front of the television,’ the Volkskrant quoted Teeven as saying.