The justice ministry’s fine collection agency CJIB made over 88,000 court applications to have people jailed for non-payment of traffic fines last year, website Nu.nl says on Wednesday.

This represents a sharp rise on 2010, when almost 62,000 applications were made. The website says it is not known how many people were actually sent to prison.

The practice of jailing people for non-payment of fines is known as gijzeling, literally being taken hostage, in Dutch. People can then be locked up for up to seven days and still have to pay the fine on their release.

Over 600,000 offenders were threatened with having their car or driving licence confiscated, up 100,000 on 2010, Nu.nl says. Last year, 217,000 cars were confiscated for the legal maximum of up to four weeks, as were 232,000 driving licences.

The website says the tough approach from the CJIB is in contrast to the actual drop in fines being handed out. In 2010, the CJIB issued almost 11 million traffic fines, compared with 8.3 million last year.