Education One step closer to the introduction of the new Code of Criminal Procedure Written on Thursday, February 26, 2026 De Eerste Kamer heeft dinOn Tuesday 24 February, the Dutch Senate adopted the new Code of Criminal Procedure (Wetboek van Strafvordering), Books 1 to 8. The Code of Criminal Procedure contains the rules for the investigation, prosecution and sentencing of criminal offences in the Netherlands. The new code will not become effective immediately. The target date is 1 April 2029. This means the police, the Public Prosecution Service, and the judiciary will have three years of preparation time. Behind the scenes, employees of the project Strategic Objective for Education on the New Code of Criminal Procedure (NWvSv) are working hard towards the introduction of the new code in the police organisation. This is how the Police Academy is fulfilling its responsibility to prepare police employees for the introduction of the new code effectively and in good time. Legal analyses of this new code are being conducted. These are part of a broader information package and will form the basis for adapting the curriculum and the supplementary training for about 60,000 police employees. The texts of the new code are not yet complete. There will be a number of additions, prompted by a number of pilot projects, for instance. Current affairs may also lead to amendment of the code. ‘These amendments will be adopted through two separate supplementary Acts’, Liesbet explains. She is a legal expert on the NWvSv-related education team. ‘These amendments must also be approved by the House of Representatives and the Senate’. Legal analyses in plain language ‘I focus daily on the content of the new code,’ she elaborates. ‘I analyse each section of the law we use in our training. In other words: what does the new section say, and what will change in comparison with the present code. Then I explain the section. I do this in language that is easy to understand.’ ‘This analysis forms the basis for the new curriculum the teachers will develop. Together with the education specialists, they will also develop new educational resources. We, as the strategic education team, also use this analysis to shape the supplementary training and fill the knowledge database. Of course I don’t do this on my own. I collaborate with my strategic education colleagues, the national programme, and Juridisch Blauw, the legal knowledge database on the police intranet, which provides legal information to police colleagues.’ Modern language in the new code One of these colleagues in the strategic education team is Stefan. Previously, he worked as a criminal lawyer and lectured in law at the Police Academy. ‘When I was young, I already felt the urge to join the police, but I decided to study law instead. Eventually, the urge resurfaced and I applied as a police volunteer. This is how I ended up at the Police Academy’, he says. ‘Legislation, sections of the law, and legal analyses may seem extremely boring, but they aren’t. The present legislation is a hundred years old and written in a language that not everyone will understand’, Stefan explains. ‘What’s so good about the new Code is that it’s written in modern, plain language. This makes it easier for everyone to understand what it says. It’s like having a new car: you can drive, but you first have to get to know the new car. That’s what it’s like for me with the new Code: I’m getting to know it inside out’. New powers The new Code not only contains texts in plain language, but also includes new investigative powers. ‘The present code dates from an era without mobile phones or cloud storage. Pilot projects were used to test a number of new powers and find out whether they work well in practice. These pilot projects have been laid down in the Code of Criminal Procedure Innovation Act’, Liesbet explains. One of the new powers is to read messages on a mobile phone after it has been seized. ‘Messages may be received on a mobile phone after it’s been seized. The present legislation doesn’t provide for how to handle this’, Liesbet explains. ‘The phone is immediately put into flight mode. But say you’ve arrested someone you suspect of committing a robbery together with others. Then it would be handy to leave the phone on, particularly if their fellow suspects still contact them. Subject to specific conditions, this has been provided for in the new legislation’. Change with regard to citizen’s arrest ‘Another example of advantages is the change to the role of the police officer in a citizen’s arrest’, Stefan relates. ‘At present, if a shop security officer makes a citizen’s arrest, a police officer has to take the suspect to a police station’. ‘There the assistant public prosecutor assesses the legitimacy of the arrest. Under the new legislation, police officers are no longer required to take such suspects to the police station. They can release them with a warning. This only applies to citizen’s arrests’, Stefan explains. It only applies to minor offences, not in the case of a serious offences, such as murder. ‘Because the officers themselves can decide, we ultimately save time and money,’ Stefan emphasises. ‘Due to the present personnel shortages, the police wanted to make this part of the job a bit simpler’.