Two new enforcement instruments
As of January 2009, Dutch municipalities can make use of two new instruments for out-of-court settlements of public order violations: the ‘bestuurlijke strafbeschikking overlast’ and the ‘bestuurlijke boete overlast’. These instruments give local law enforcers the authority to issue an penalty for minor punishable offences such as stray dogs, dog droppings, household waste dumps or violation of other local bylaws. In the case of the ‘bestuurlijke boete’ the municipality is responsible for the administrative process. In the case of the ‘bestuurlijke strafbeschikking overlast’, the municipality sends the written charge (‘proces-verbaal’) to the Central Fine Collection Agency (‘Centraal Justitieel Incassobureau or CJIB) after which the CJIB sends a copy of the charge with a giro payment slip to the accused. If the accused refuses to pay the penalty, the case is submitted to the public prosecutor for further judgement. After that, the case can be brought to court. If the fine is paid, the case will not be evaluated by the public prosecutor.
Evaluation
Three years after the introduction of both instruments, this evaluation has been conducted. To what extent have both instruments been implemented by municipalities? What are the results of the instruments and of the financial compensatory allowance scheme? To answer these questions, DSP-groep has conducted research from November 2011 to April 2012 for the Scientific Research and Documentation Center (WODC) of the Ministry of Security and Justice. The legal framework and the legal and political reasoning resulting in the introduction of both instruments has been studied by Prof. Mr. Dr. Arthur Hartmann of Erasmus University, Rotterdam. DSP-groep conducted the rest of the research: a survey among Dutch municipalities in which 301 municipalities participated (72% response), in-depth interviews with 23 representatives of six municipalities and representatives of the CJIB, the Central Processing Unit of the Public Prosecution Service (CVOM) and the Ministries of Security and Justice and the Ministry of the Interior. In addition, DSP-groep has performed a quantitative analysis on a database containing all ‘bestuurlijke strafbeschikkingen overlast’ issued between early 2009 and February 2012 (over 50.000 cases). The CVOM has analysed all cases that have been evaluated by the Public Prosecution Service and cantonal judges. An independent committee has supervised the progress and quality of the research.
The survey among Dutch municiplaities is part of this dataset. The in-depth interviews, and the database containing all ‘bestuurlijke strafbeschikkingen overlast’ are not available.
