“I don’t want sentence reductions for offenders simply because there’s no room left in our prisons,” says MR President Georges-Louis Bouchez. “Someone sentenced to up to five years in prison has committed a serious offence, and that doesn’t deserve favours. Convicts must serve their sentence in full.”
For Georges-Louis Bouchez, there are enough levers to tackle this overcrowding. “The solution is to send foreign inmates back to their country of origin. Forty-three per cent of prisoners in our country do not hold Belgian nationality. And don’t tell me it’s complicated, because there are currently, for example, two to three hundred Moroccan inmates we could deport immediately. The Moroccan authorities even agree, but our administrations aren’t following through. The Federal Public Service Justice must do its job.”
“In addition, we need to build a prison abroad for this type of inmate. Or at least use available spaces in foreign prisons. In Belgium too, we must create new capacity. Don’t forget that certain wings of our prisons are closed. This might be the moment to bring them back into service. The MR’s message is simple: we didn’t form this government to be lax. We want a firm and rigorous approach. Convicts must serve their sentence in full.”
Two visions
“There are two visions around the government table,” explains the MR President. “Some want to release prisoners as quickly as possible, which is a very bad approach. And then there’s the MR’s position, which holds that all offenders must be punished. Looking at the problems linked to drug trafficking or illegal residents committing offences, what we most need today is a firm policy. I notice that the authorities show a lot of creativity and are happy to mobilise resources to closely monitor the honest shopkeeper or ordinary citizen, in case they might have paid a little too little tax. It would probably be better to use that energy to pursue real criminals and fraudsters.”