Quick solutions to increase prison capacity (2022)

Photo credit: Sebastien Van Malleghem On Thursday 29 September, EuroPris organised a webinar, kindly co-hosted by the Belgian Prison Service. Overcrowding is an increasingly widespread and common problem in Europe in places of detention. In many countries, it is a very serious concern, impacting possibilities for rehabilitation and re-integration. In some cases, the problem compromises the ability for administrations to fulfill detainees’ basic needs in terms of living conditions, medical care, legal aid, and family visits. The topic of this webinar was about short-, medium- and long-term solutions to manage overcrowding by increasing prison capacity. The focus of this webinar was on logistics and infrastructure, policy change, and legislative reform.

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Presentations

Interested to view the content from this webinar? Click here to view the videos (YouTube) and powerpoint presenbation from each speaker.

Speakers: Introduction Rudy van de Voorde, Director General, Belgian Prison Service, Belgium A fast track to an outside placement Antti Kanerva, Head of Unit, Prison and Probation Service of Finland A modular building of prison cell Dirk Becker, Amtsrat im Justizvollzug, Ministry of Justice of Lower Saxony, Germany Monitoring places of detention in Switzerland Laura van Mandach, Head of Knowledge and Analysis, Swiss Centre of Expertise in Prison and Probation SCEPP, Switzerland

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Article for Inspiration

More prisons, further away: a closer look at the expanding global prison estate (written by Edith Riegler, Penal Reform International)