Belgium Prison Workers Walk Out Over Overcrowding, Violence

(MENAFN) Correctional staff across Belgium walked off the job Monday in a coordinated nationwide strike, demanding urgent action on chronic overcrowding, escalating violence, and unsustainable working conditions, a news agency reported.

The industrial action commenced at 6:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT), triggered by the collapse of last-ditch negotiations between trade unions and the office of Belgian Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden, which failed to yield any concrete commitments on prison conditions or capacity relief.

In an unusually candid show of solidarity, prison directors broke ranks with management convention to publicly back the strike, characterizing the state of the country's prisons as "untenable." Mathilde Steenbergen, head of Belgium's national prison service, was expected to personally visit the strike picket at Lantin prison in a further gesture of support for frontline staff.

The numbers underlying the unrest are stark: Belgium's prisons currently hold 13,733 inmates against an official capacity of 11,064, with 754 prisoners forced to sleep on floor mattresses due to the shortage of beds.

Unions cautioned that the crisis is far from static, warning that staff shortages and in-prison violence are on a worsening trajectory — one likely to deteriorate further as summer holidays thin out the workforce. Prison authorities corroborated that assessment, reporting that the number of serious incidents had doubled over the past year, while workplace absences tied to aggression-related injuries surged by more than 30% over the past two years.

The conditions have also drawn censure at the European level. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture cautioned last month that prison overcrowding across the continent risks crossing the threshold into "inhuman and degrading treatment."

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