Breda's dome prison was part of a judicial complex in the center of Breda. The former prison is one of three dome prisons in the Netherlands. He housed part of the De Boschpoort penitentiary. This had three parts: a detention center, a prison and a department with extra care places.
Until January 2013, there was also a women's prison. The women were transferred to the Ter Peel penitentiary in Horst aan de Maas. On March 22, 2013, it was announced that the entire prison would be closed due to budget cuts. The next department closed in 2014. The rest of the complex was definitively closed as a penitentiary on 1 January 2016. There was a lot of protest against this in Breda, the mayor said he was sad about it.
The dome prison was built in the period 1882-1886 to a design by the justice architect Johan Metzelaar, who previously designed the comparable dome prison in Arnhem. The building was designed according to the panopticon principle devised by Briton Jeremy Bentham in 1791: from the center of the circular complex, the guards could keep a constant eye on the prisoners.
The complex was designated a national monument in 2001. In mid-2007 a procedure was started to declare the area around De Koepel a protected cityscape. The entire complex, with the exception of the row of custodian houses along Nassaustraat, is owned by the State and managed by the Central Government Real Estate Agency. In 2021, the dome prison was put up for sale by the Central Government Real Estate Agency.
Guided tours have been regularly organized by the facility for several decades. In May 2005 a kind of 'open day' was organized for the first time by the Ministry of Justice. 75 people were allowed to come and watch that day