Because of huge overpopulation and the rise of the number of suicides in French jails, a TV crew from TF1 news travels to the Netherlands and to Belgium to check out the jail systems in these two European states and how they work in practice.
The situation in Dutch jails is very difference from France. Inmates have their own cell including toilet and television and most of the Dutch jails are new and well maintained. There are loads of activities and new experiments are preparing inmates for their life after jail.
Many inmates do voluntary work, like production work or maintaining parks, and inmates can learn crafts like plasterer and painter. Some of the inmates even already have a job when they are released out of jail.
Last but not least the Dutch jails do not suffer from heavy overpopulation like in France. The Dutch even have to close jails because there are too many empty cells. Lately the Belgian state asked the Dutch if it is possible to stick some of the Belgian inmates into Dutch cells to fight overpopulation in Belgium.
The TF1 journalist and cameraman visit a jail in Lelystad a town in one of the Dutch polders . The director of Dutch prisons, the director of the Dutch Rehabilitation Department and the project leader of the crafts courses are interviewed. For the rest a group of inmates doing community service, the plasterer course and an empty cell is filmed.
The French TV crew is amazed, because the Dutch jails are so totally different from the French, with single person cells and many activities, and because Dutch inmates are so well prepared on their return in society.
For this news reportage Featurez gave advice, did the research, set-up and planning, accompanied the filming, did part of the interviews and did translations.