The number of people held in Dutch prisons will continue to decline over the next few years, and will average 8,875 by 2015, NRC.next said on Friday, quoting justice ministry figures.

In 2005, there were an average of 14,108 people in prison but this had fallen to just over 11,000 by 2009.
However, most prison sentences are for less than one year, and last year over 39,000 people spent some time in jail, the paper said.
The number of prison cells has been declining for years and last year the cabinet announced plans to close a further six youth detention centres as well.
The reason for the decline in prisoner numbers is a drop in crime and a switch to fines, community service and electronic tagging, the ministry’s research institute said.