ABSTRACT
In the winter of 2011, the media in the Netherlands reported the case of a young man with mild intellectual disability (ID) who had been held in detention for three years. The public outcry concerning the story was huge, which was not surprising given the fact that the young man was not a prison inmate but a resident of a home for people with ID, the aim of which is to provide care and support. Among the many questions asked, the main concern was how a resident of a service facility could be chained to the wall for three years, with only brief interruptions for physical exercise each day, and without anybody interfering. The similarities to a prison regime were just too obvious not to invoke waves of public protest.
