Life imprisonment in the Netherlands

Since the abolition of the death penalty in the Netherlands in 1870, life imprisonment specifically means imprisonment lasting for the rest of the convicted person’s life without the possibility of parole. Unlike in other countries in Europe, there is no possibility of release for anyone sentenced to life imprisonment. Though the prisoner can appeal for pardon, it must be granted by royal decree. This is effectively the only way a life convicted prison could ever be set free from a life sentence; however, this almost never happens and only a few pardons for life convicted have ever been successful in recent history. Since the 1970s, only three such pardons have been successful, two of which had been terminally ill. Since 1945, 41 criminals (excluding war criminals who were sentenced to death under special justice) have been sentenced to life imprisonment. There has been a noticeable increase of life imprisonment sentences being given in the last decades, and more than triple the number of life imprisonment sentences in the last few years than the previous decades.

Due to the strict nature of the sentence, most "common" murders result in a sentence of around 12 to 30 years. The judicial panel (always composed of three members) is not able to award sentences of longer than 15 years' imprisonment for manslaughter alone (so not combined with other facts constituting an offence), so if malice aforethought has not been proven, a criminal will never receive a sentence of longer than 15 years. The only life sentence for a single murder without aggravating circumstances was given in 2005 to Mohammed Bouyeri for the murder of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, due to its strong political nature. In all other cases, there has been circumstances of recurrence (murder committed after sentencing for another murder), multitude (several murders) or severe gravity to the crime (i.e. torture murder).