{"id":464281,"date":"2026-09-08T13:10:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T11:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/09\/08\/il-consiglio-deuropa-contro-il-belgio-la-situazione-nelle-carceri-peggiora\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T14:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:42:14","slug":"council-of-europe-criticises-belgium-the-situation-in-prisons-is-deteriorating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/09\/08\/council-of-europe-criticises-belgium-the-situation-in-prisons-is-deteriorating\/","title":{"rendered":"Council of Europe criticises Belgium: “The situation in prisons is deteriorating”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Belgium has a growing problem with its prisons<\/strong>: the Council of Europe\u2019s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) highlights \u201cthe worsening overcrowding, violence and service provision\u201d in the country\u2019s detention facilities, home to the capital of the European Union. The report<\/a>, which confirms an issue that has already arisen, follows a visit conducted from 15 to 26 May 2025 to five prisons in Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia, and to the forensic psychiatric centres in Antwerp and Ghent.<\/strong>\u200b<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 Specifically, Alan Mitchell<\/strong>, chair of the Anti-Torture Committee, reports that \u201cin the 14 months since the CPT\u2019s last visit, the prison population has risen by nearly 4 per cent and the number of people sleeping on a mattress on the floor has more than doubled.<\/strong>\u201d This is \u201cdespite measures to tackle prison overcrowding in Belgium,\u201d which demonstrate the ineffectiveness of these commitments.  According to Mitchell, \u201cthe deteriorating prison conditions in Belgium not only might expose people in prison to inhuman and degrading treatment but they also risk undermining the wider criminal-justice system.\u201d Furthermore, it emerges that \u201cmany\u201d prisoners have less than 4 square metres of personal space. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Among the critical issues within the Belgian prison system, the Council of Europe highlights that \u201cgiven the understaffing,<\/strong> the legally required minimum service65 was rarely guaranteed\u201d during days of industrial action and was \u201coften\u201d unattainable even under normal conditions.<\/span><\/span> Consequently, \u201cprisoners were frequently confronted with waiting times and cancellations…as
\na result, prisoners were not consistently able to attend medical consultations, court hearings or
\nparticipate in activities.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Belgium has a growing problem with its prisons: the Council of Europe\u2019s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) highlights \u201cthe worsening overcrowding, violence and service provision\u201d in the country\u2019s detention facilities, home to the capital of the European Union. The report, which confirms an issue that has already arisen, follows a visit conducted from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":464251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25774,29788],"tags":[33580,29890,26252,29891],"class_list":["post-464281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-brief","category-diritti-en","tag-belgio","tag-carceri-en","tag-council-deuropa-en","tag-situation-carcerati-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464282,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464281\/revisions\/464282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}