Fewer prisoners manage to escape
Laurent Sempot, the spokesman for the Belgian prisons and detention centres, explains that in fact only 3 of these 8 escapes were actually escapes from a prison building. "The 5 other escapes happened when prisoners were being transferred to a hospital or to a police building."
The present number of escapes is in sharp contrast with the figures of the years before. "The decline can be explained by the different security investments and upgrades", Belgian Justice Minister Stefaan De Clerck (Flemish christian democrat, photo) claims.
"We have installed nets to prevent helicopter escapes, we introduced a system of finger prints and we have better trained staff. I think that the better figures are also due to the fact that the pressure is down in most Belgian prisons thanks to the transfer of inmates to the Dutch prison in Tilburg. This has created a better atmosphere in Belgian gaols", Mr De Clerck adds.
Belgian prisons have a major problem of overcrowding, but this should be solved by the construction of new prison buildings and the renovation of the present gaols.
