Overcrowding and violence in Belgium's prisons: 'I was the victim of four assassination attempts'

A compartment of conscionable 9 quadrate metres with nary toilet tin clasp up to 3 prisoners. Sometimes, 1 of them has to slumber connected the level owed to a deficiency of space. This is communal successful Belgium, a state that has been struggling with superior situation overcrowding for years, arsenic reported by the non-profit relation 9m².

The Forest situation successful Brussels, which closed theee years ago, is an illustration of these conditions. The voices of those who had to past present tin inactive beryllium heard. One of them is Jean-Luc Mahy, a erstwhile captive who earned a grade during much than 18 years down bars and who besides thought astir taking his ain beingness respective times due to the fact that of the harsh conditions.

"Of people determination are tensions successful prison. I was the unfortunate of 4 execution attempts, 1 of them astatine the property of 18, erstwhile a feline came into my cell, reasoning I had killed his girlfriend, and bushed maine up. I retrieve the warders saved my life," helium explained to Euronews.

"They took maine to the shower. I was determination wholly bare and the h2o was moving and I was defecating betwixt my buttocks and bleeding a lot. You don't hide moments similar that."

A situation museum

The 9m² relation was created to amusement nine the problems prisoners look and marque radical deliberation astir them.

Its members person turned the bare Forest situation into a "multiperspective gathering space" wherever researchers, students, civilian servants and erstwhile prisoners tin stock experiences to assistance find solutions to a occupation that is getting worse, according to the association’s director, Manuel Lambert.

"We spot that overcrowding successful prisons continues to increase. There is nary improvement. That's what worries us. Government aft government, we look to beryllium stuck successful the aforesaid signifier of imprisonment," Lambert says.

He besides explains that "overcrowding means that inmates with precise antithetic needs are forced to stock tiny spaces, which increases tensions."

There is besides a "lack of resources" erstwhile societal areas are utilized for accommodation, leaving nary abstraction for learning oregon activities. In the words of the 9m² director, "prison volition not lick thing successful these conditions due to the fact that those who participate illiterate volition permission illiterate and the enactment successful situation volition person been a discarded of time."

Staff shortages marque it harder to supervise prisoners and springiness them idiosyncratic support. "All this creates a clime much favourable to unit wrong the walls, truthful that the integrity of some inmates and unit is astatine risk," Lambert explains.

Without capable intelligence support, prisoners person less chances to reintegrate, 9m² says.

"There are not capable societal workers, doctors and psychiatrists looking aft prisoners to let these radical to permission successful amended conditions than they entered," stresses Lambert, who besides underlines that "the recidivism complaint of radical who commencement again is precise precocious successful Belgium, truthful we spot that situation is simply a nonaccomplishment to support society."

A wide occupation successful Europe

Belgium is 1 of the countries astatine the forefront erstwhile it comes to situation overcrowding successful Europe with implicit 13,000 radical successful a situation strategy designed to clasp 11,000. Overcrowding is besides communal successful France, Italy and Cyprus.

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) regularly visits European prisons to cheque that they are functioning decently and that quality rights are not being violated. According to its latest survey, carried retired successful 2024, the European countries which acquisition the astir terrible overcrowding successful prisons, determined by much than 105 prisoners per 100 places, are Slovenia (134), Cyprus (132), France (124), Italy (118), Romania (116) and Belgium (113).

Countries with mean overcrowding, 105 oregon little but inactive supra capacity, see Croatia (110), Ireland (105) and Sweden (105). Situations adjacent to saturation were besides observed successful Scotland (100), England and Wales (98) and Serbia (98).

The concern is worsening as, according to Eurostat data, the fig of prisoners could summation by up to 200% betwixt 2023 and 2027 successful European prisons.

Political context

Prison overcrowding is often linked to a country's socio-political concern and the content that agelong sentences are the astir effectual signifier of justice.

Hugh Chetwynd, Executive Secretary of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, gives the illustration of Italy, France oregon the United Kingdom arsenic countries with "overcrowding problems" and which person "chosen to tighten transgression legislation," including for cause offences.

"The contented is that determination is simply a deficiency of assurance successful alternatives to imprisonment for cause offences, for example, wherever radical could beryllium prevented from going to situation by the imposition of physics bracelets and assemblage service," Hugh Chetwynd told Euronews.

At the aforesaid time, helium says determination is an summation successful organised transgression successful Europe and these groups "can proceed with their enactment and their concern portion they are successful situation due to the fact that the unit can't power them properly, due to the fact that determination is truthful overmuch overcrowding."

Added to this is the information that "in astir countries, if a tribunal sends a idiosyncratic to a situation with a valid warrant to detain them, the situation cannot expel them and volition judge them adjacent if it means that they person to spell and slumber connected a mattress connected the level of a cell," Chetwynd said.

Chetwynd believes determination is inactive a agelong mode to spell earlier European societies wide recognise that prisons should bespeak and lend to the betterment of society.