Norway to rent Dutch prisons to cut convict queue

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway plans to rent prison space in the Netherlands as the queue of convicts awaiting cells is growing and renovation work at Norwegian jails is expected to cut capacity, the justice ministry said on Monday.

"At the moment, the queue is at 1,300 custodial sentences, and there is a great demand for detention space," it said in a statement. "The Netherlands has already leased prison capacity to Belgium for several years."