Prison staff across the country will go on a 48-hour strike at 22:00 on Sunday to protest against the "inhumane" conditions in which people have to live and work.
Prison overcrowding, staff shortages and a Minister of Justice who is "stubborn" in wanting to apply short prison sentences at all costs are among the main claims of the unions. A major riot at Turnhout Prison on Friday night forced the intervention of special police units to restore calm in a prison known for having severe overcrowding problems.
"The Ministry of Justice has been under-budgeted for decades", the Christian union representative began," said Claudine Coupienne, Permanent Secretary of the Public Services CSC. "The minister stubbornly insists on putting people sentenced to between 0 and 3 years in prison, but there's no room! People are sleeping on the floor because we're putting threesomes in cells designed to hold just one person."
Grégory Wallez, Federal Secretary of the CGSP, agrees: "Our justice minister's political vision" in enforcing short sentences is "to put an end to impunity".
However, this promise went hand in hand with opening around fifteen new prisons to accommodate around 600 new inmates, he adds. "There are currently only three in operation: two in Flanders and one in Brussels.
Saint-Gilles Prison staff walk out in 2016 to protest working conditions. Credit: Belga / Thierry Roge
In addition, Belgium makes "abusive use of preventive detention, which is also counterproductive", adds Coupienne. The result is "an overcrowding of 115 to 120% per prison, i.e. a shortfall of 1,500 places", according to her Socialist colleague.
Nevertheless, creating new places "has never been the right decision to combat overcrowding", adds Grégory Wallez. "In Belgium, the more buildings there are, the more prisoners there are.
'Reassures the electorate'
The only short-term solution that Coupienne sees to prison overcrowding is for Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD) to reverse his latest decisions. However, with nine months to go before the elections, she is not convinced.
Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne at the prison of Forest, Brussels, Friday 18 November 2022. Credit: Belga / Nicolas Maeterlinck
"The main problem is that it reassures the electorate to put people in prison, far from the cities, as if they were no longer part of society. But in prison, the penalty is deprivation of freedom, not deprivation of rights, human contact or hygiene", points out Coupienne, stressing that "if prisoners are treated badly in prison, they come out worse than when they went in".
Other, more creative solutions are also possible, according to Wallez. "During Covid, some prisoners were sent home to serve their sentences. But even when they scrupulously complied with the conditions imposed, they were then sent back to prison on the pretext that the health crisis was over. The minister needn't worry: he's going to have his health crisis," warns the union representative.
Epidemics of bedbugs, fungus and other infections are circulating in prison, not helped by the fact inmates can no longer take a daily shower because of overcrowding.
'Haren is a disaster'
The Haren mega-prison, a 1,190-place prison village inaugurated with much fanfare just over a year ago. It was intended to meet the justice system's challenges, with the threefold aim of "eliminating prison overcrowding by 2030, improving prison conditions and reducing the rate of recidivism," as Mathieu Michel, Secretary of State for the Building Regulation, put it at the time.
"Today, only 850 places are occupied because we're short of staff," says Coupienne. Her colleague from the CGSP said the same thing: "Haren has not managed to train enough staff to open all the buildings that form the prison".
A new large 'prison village' in Haren, Brussels, Friday 30 September 2022. Credit: Belga / James Arthur Gekiere
"Haren is a disaster: inmates were poisoned after a fire in a cell because the smoke extractors were placed too far away, badges mistakenly giving access to certain premises (threatening security procedures), shower trays mounted upside down... But the problems are kept quiet because the government wants to present it as the jewel in the crown of Belgian prisons," laments the representative of the Christian union.
While prison overcrowding primarily affects prisoners, it is also having an impact on the work of prison staff. The unions are denouncing the increase in workload and the insecurity that is taking hold in prisons.
Generally speaking, "working conditions are so bad that it's not for nothing that it's no longer possible to recruit new staff. It's like a snake biting its own tail", concludes Coupienne.
Faced with this bleak picture, prison officers will be striking for two days. There will be a minimum service, the conditions of which will vary according to the size and activities of each establishment. Picket lines will be organised on Monday, notably in Tournai, Namur and Lantin. A meeting with Vincent Van Quickenborne was scheduled for Wednesday at 14:15, but was cancelled, according to the CGSP.
