The first reports concerning the construction of a large prison in Limburg date from the sixties. The intention was to replace the small, dated, nineteenth-century institutions of Hasselt and Tongeren with a modern, contemporary complex. Because of the persistent overpopulation in the old prisons and the necessity to provide sufficient capacity for the detention of sentenced persons from the province, the project was given the green light. The staff and the prisoners of the old prisons were integrated in a new building. The prison was first occupied on 19 March 2005.