The number of convicted criminals receiving long-term psychological treatment has halved in the last four years as the government develops ways to care for them in the community, the AD reports.

The total number of patients in long-stay tbs clinics currently stands at 112, compared to more than 200 in 2012. Tbs is an order for treatment that the courts can impose alongside a prison sentence if an offender is found to have a mental illness or developmental deficiency.

Junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff said the downward trend was expected to continue as patients are transferred to local community healthcare or supervised accommodation. He added that patients would only be discharged if it was judged safe to do so.

Dutch law requires tbs treatment programmes to be completed within six years. If the offender is not ready to leave custody after this time, they are sent to a long-stay clinic which is not expected to focus on rehabilitation.

Lifelong supervision

A number of measures have been introduced in recent years to make the long-term treatment of criminals more flexible, such as lifelong supervision in the community for former patients as well as sex offenders and ex-prisoners with convictions for violence.

Hjalmar van Marle, a former director of the Pieter Baan Centre, which carries out assessments on criminal suspects to see if they are suitable for tbs, described the trend as ‘a good development’. ‘In the past long stay was for life. You couldn’t be treated any more,’ he said.

‘But treatment methods are better now and more focused on the individual, which means in some cases it is safe to let tbs patients out under supervision.’