As of 2010, Belgium rented 650 spaces in the Tilburg prison in the Netherlands for 30 million Euros per year (the contract ended in 2016). The prisoners of Wortel prison were transferred to these facilities; this project ended up being a failure. In 2012 the CPT denouced the violent climate of Tilburg Prison, where the maintaining of family ties and the reintegration of prisoners were undermined. Some French-speaking or Arab-speaking prisoners were isolated in an environment almost exclusively Dutch.

The prison administration is part of a federal public service (FPS). The territorial distribution is in line with the linguistic separation of the country; in the North Dutch and south, French. Prisoners are spread according to their language.

The division of competences between the federal state and the federated entities is a source of confusion.

Three regimes, generally divided into different wings in the same prison, are applied to prisoners:

• The open regime: prisoners can move freely inside the prison (Hoogstraten, Ruiselede, Saint-Hubert and Wortel).
• The closed regime: prisoners must stay in cells. They can exit on different occasions (visiting room, work, activities). The majority of institutions apply this regime.
• The semi-open regime: it is a hybrid of the two preceding regimes (Marneffe and Merksplas).

Open and semi-open regimes are often considered a luxury granted to the prisoners, which the prison administration can withdraw at any moment.

Prisons are divided into two categories: prisons for untried prisoners (pretrial) and prisons for convicted prisoners; however, most prisons detain both.

The Ministry of Justice accounts for a total of 34 prisons: two in Brussels, 16 in Flanders and 16 in Wallonia. Our count shows 38 prisons¹:

• 34 prisons for men – including:
  • Eight women’s units within men’s facilities.
  • Two with special sections for youth detention (Tongres and Saint-Hubert)
• One prison for women (Berkendael Prison)
• One social defence institution (EDS) in Paifve
• Two centres of forensic psychiatry in Ghent and Antwerp

The smallest prison in Tongres has 25 cells and on average 21 people (Figure from 2016). The biggest prison in Lantin has 694 cells for an average of 905 prisoners during the same year (latest figures published).

The older prisons are mainly located in the centre of cities. The new ones, built in the nineties, are located either on the outskirts of cities or in rural areas. Access is more difficult for staff, visitors, families and lawyers.

The construction of these prisons comes from several periods:

• Eighteen prisons date from the eighteenth century
• Twelve from the twentieth century
• Five were constructed in the 2000s
• Two Forensic Centres date back to the 1850s and 1950s

Since 2008, prison facilities have been subject to consecutive masterplans (renovating existing structures and building new prisons). The Penitentiary Administration states the aim is to build a more humane prison system. Nevertheless, this is not the perception of prisoners: although they agree that comfort and hygiene are taken into account, they consider that infrastructures are cold and the surveillance is ubiquitous. These new institutions built in public-private partnership (PPP) present contemporary infrastructures, separate toilet-shower block and computers and telephones in each cell. They are presented as a solution to the endemic overpopulation. In October 2017 the prison of Leuze in Hainaut, opened in 2014 and under full capacity since 2015, states an occupation rate of 110%.

The biggest project underway is a mega prison in Haren to the north of Brussels. This institution could count up to 1,190 cells, however, its origins are particularly troubled. No document clearly attests to the choice to build such an institution and even less is given about the reasons to build such a facility. The successive governments confirmed their obligation to build the mega-prison following a political agreement from 2008; this agreement cannot be verified This project would be done in PPP through a consortium of companies. This consortium would build the walls and maintain them for 25 years. The cost of the project is estimated by the associations at three billion euros over 25 years.

The opposition to this project brings together both citizens’ groups and associations and legal professionals. To this day, any appeals filed have been denied.

A parliamentary motion on the funding of this institution through a PPP, tabled in 2016, has still not been considered in the justice commission of the Parliament.

For more information, consult the report « Mega-prison of Brussels – Genesis of a crime », published in October 2017.

Details of the training are as follows:

• The training of prison officers lasts 13 weeks and is composed of theoretical courses and field courses
• Training is provided at the Training Centre for Prison Staff in Marneffe
• No diploma is required to start the training
• You must be at least 20 years old and of Belgian nationality
• Trainees are sometimes placed in a professional situation prior to completion of the training to compensate for the lack of staff.