Prison Village

Veenhuizen has a long history when it comes to forced labour and re-education into ‘industrious people’, as General Johannes van den Bosch formulated it. This chapter of history is not closed. Punishment and re-education still play a major role in Veenhuizen although, in today’s terms we speak about detention and rehabilitation. In Veenhuizen, there are three penitentiaries where detainees sit out their sentences. They are shut off from the outside world by high fences, in the middle of the broad landscape.