A quarter of community service sentences are never or only partially carried out, according to new figures from the probation service Reclassering Nederland.

Thousands of people sentenced to community service either fail to show up or are sent home for aggressive behaviour or breaking the rules, broadcaster NOS said.

In 2013, there were problems with one in five community service sentences, but this rose to over one in four last year. This means in 2015 almost 11,000 people failed to carry out their sentence.

The public prosecution service says that eventually 93% of community service sentences are carried out successfully, but this figure includes people who were sent to jail instead because they did not keep to the community service rules.

A spokesman for the probation service it is ‘incredibly important’ that they do go to jail. ‘Perpetrators should not escape their sentence,’ he said.