Legal provisions on protection orders
The court can impose a “no contact order‟ (contactverbod) which entails that the offender is no longer allowed to contact the victim (not in person, in writing, by telephone, by e-mail, or any other form of communication). Another option, which can simultaneously be imposed, is the “street restraining order‟ (straat-en/of gebiedsverbod). After the imposition of this order, the offender is no longer allowed to enter the street where the victim lives, or to be present in a certain area. Often, the orders are designed so as to grant maximum safety to the victim during her daily activities, while keeping the restraints on the offender’s freedom of movement to a minimum. [57: University of Tilburg et al. Feasibility study national legislation on gender violence and violence against children – Report on the Netherlands, 25 May 2010, p.17.]A hospital order is a unique Dutch provision in criminal law where the psychologically or psychiatrically disturbed violent and/or sex offender, who is diagnosed to have a high risk of recidivism, is detained under an intensive forensic-psychiatric treatment regime. The length of that type of detention is never pre-defined but depends on whether the perpetrator is considered to be have healed.