Vlaams Belang fully understands this indefinite strike which started last night in all prisons in this country. “Despite Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt made many announcements (Open Vld) no solutions for the immense overcrowding and staff shortages,” says MP Marijke Dillen. “On the contrary, the more he does, the bigger the problems become.”
According to the most recent figures (March 17, 2024), there are 12,070 detainees for 10,743 places in the 36 Belgian prisons, which equates to an overcrowding of 12.35 percent. “Structural overpopulation, which has been denounced by Vlaams Belang and the unions for years,” said Dillen. “And an overpopulation that unfortunately creates inhumane living conditions, and which also causes a lot of aggression and therefore extremely dangerous working conditions.”
“44.54 percent of detainees are foreigners”
“The unions are right when they call for an urgent approach to the approximately one thousand internees staying in the prisons,” Dillen notes. “The current situation is absolutely a shame. These people do not belong in penitentiary but in psychiatric institutions. But they remain silent about the main cause of overcrowding, the enormous number of detained foreigners.” Figures that parliamentary group leader Barbara Pas requested from Van Tigchelt this week showed that 44.54 percent of detainees do not have Belgian nationality, not even including people with dual nationality, and that three-quarters of them are even in the country illegally. stays.
“Even today, Van Tigchelt continues to turn a blind eye to the real solution to overpopulation: allowing criminal aliens to serve their sentences in their country of origin,” Dillen concludes. “What he proposes as the remedy, an extension of penitentiary leave, is at most a drop in the bucket. That’s barely 167 places. In the prison of Antwerp in 15. If Van Tigchelt does not really tackle the problem quickly, the strike will be very long-lasting, and he will be described as – as can be read today in the newspaper De Tijd – a particularly arrogant minister, who created more problems than he generated solutions.”
