MPs will use this week’s debate on the justice ministry’s budget for 2008 to call for tougher laws on sexual abuse, a lowering of the age juveniles are tried as adults, tougher measures to combat fraud and more help for ex-prisoners on their release from jail, reports news agency ANP.

In particular, the free-market VVD wants an end to the 12 and 15 year limits on prosecuting cases involving sexual abuse.
The party also wants to make it possible for 16 and 17-year-olds to be tried as adults. ‘We have to make sure the nasty pieces of work who terrorise neighbourhoods don’t get away with a couple of years in youth detention,’ the party’s justice spokesman Fred Teeven said.
The Socialist Party is calling for better after-care for ex-prisoners. ‘There is an enormous divide between prison and the outside world…. good care is essential, particularly in the first hours after release,’ said party spokesman Ton Heerts.