Belgium continues to rank in the top ten regarding the most overcrowded prisons in Europe, statistics from the Council of Europe (CoE) showed on Thursday. The country also scores poorly in terms of the number of suicides in prison.
For years now, Belgium's prisons have been ranked among the most overcrowded in Europe. The prison system's chronic lack of capacity has resulted in inhumane conditions for which the country has been criticised by NGOs, including inmates sleeping on cell floors, and recently, a prisoner was tortured for several days consecutively – an incident which unions attributed to overcrowding and staff shortages, and which resulted in several strikes.
Despite new prison openings and measures to combat prison overcrowding such as a temporary scheme to reduce prisoners' sentences, the country landed in fourth place for highest prison density in the latest ranking of the CoE, covering the period from 31 January 2022 to 31 January 2023 and including data from 48 prison administrations across Europe.
Belgium was among the seven prison administrations that reported a prison density of more than 105 inmates per 100 places available, indicating severe overcrowding. Of the 100 places available in Belgium, 115 inmates were held in prisons. National figures published earlier this year confirmed the dire situation: for the first time, prisoner numbers have surpassed 12,000 in a system that only has a capacity for 10,700.
Overcrowding is most severe in Cyprus (166 inmates per 100 places available), followed by Romania (120) and France (119).
High suicide rates
Overall, in Europe, the number of prisoners per 100 places available grew by 2%, from 91.7 to 93.5 inmates. On 31 January last year, a total of 1,036,680 people were detained in 48 prison administrations.
"For the second consecutive year, the overall European prison population rate slightly grew," said Professor Marcelo Aebi, Head of the research team from the University of Lausanne which analysed the figures. "The persistence of overcrowding remains a significant challenge for many prison administrations."
Belgium also scored poorly when it came to suicide attempts. Here, the suicide rate per 10,000 inmates was 14.3. The highest rate was recorded in Latvia (21.7), followed by Switzerland (20.2), France (19.1), the UK: Scotland (18.9), Spain: Catalonia (16.8) and Italy (15.0). The European median is 5.3 per 10,000 inmates.
Belgium also stands out for its high number of inmates convicted for drug-related offences, with 29% of prisoners behind bars for these crimes. This can be explained by the high number of convictions and people in pre-trial detention following the Sky ECC drug trafficking operation.
