Belgium Prison Crisis: Nearly 800 Inmates Sleeping on Floor

Nearly 800 inmates in Belgian prisons are sleeping on mattresses on the floor as the country’s penitentiary system buckles under unprecedented overcrowding, with prison directors now appealing directly to the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) for intervention. The crisis has escalated steadily over the past year, with the number of floor sleepers rising from 525 in November 2025 to approaching 800 in June 2026 — a record that has shattered all previous benchmarks.

The Scale of the Crisis

Belgian prisons are currently housing over 13,700 detainees against an official capacity of approximately 10,795 to 11,049 places — an overcrowding rate exceeding 24 percent, according to the Belga News Agency. Even with 247 additional emergency places, the system remains severely overstretched.

The progression of floor sleepers tells a stark story. In November 2025, VRT NWS reported that 525 inmates were sleeping on the floor. By December, the number had climbed to 672. It reached 701 in March 2026, then 750 in April, and is now approaching 800 — a figure that would fill three entire prisons, according to Het Nieuwsblad.

Regional disparities are significant. In the northern region of Flanders, 339 inmates were sleeping on the floor across ten facilities as of late 2025, with Antwerp recording the highest number at 67. In Wallonia, 217 inmates were affected across nine prisons, with Nivelles (41), Leuze (38), and Marche-en-Famenne (34) the worst hit. In Brussels, 58 inmates were sleeping on the floor at the relatively new Haren prison.

A System at Breaking Point

Mathilde Steenbergen, Director General of Penitentiary Institutions, published an open letter in December 2025 warning that the system was heading toward collapse. “Today our prisons hold nearly 13,700 detainees. 672 people are sleeping on the floor. We have 2,600 more people incarcerated than there is staff for,” she wrote. “Every square meter is full. The system is cracking at every seam.” She warned of a real risk of fatalities, stating: “So that the system doesn’t crash. So that no one dies. Because that risk is real today. Not hypothetical.”

Staff shortages compound the crisis. The prison system has 2,600 more inmates than there is staff allocated for, creating dangerous working conditions. Prison unions have organized strikes and issued formal warnings, with eight prisons — including Hasselt, Antwerp, Mechelen, and Ghent — having stopped accepting new detainees at various points due to chronic overcrowding, as reported by The Brussels Times.

European Alarm

The crisis has drawn sharp attention from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), which warned in its annual report that prison overcrowding is becoming the norm across Europe. “Unfortunately, Belgium is no exception within Europe when it comes to people sleeping on the floor,” said CPT Chairman Alan Mitchell, as reported by Belga News Agency. He noted that similar issues affect France, Ireland, and Cyprus, with around 10 percent of prisoners in Ireland also sleeping on the floor.

The CPT warned that overcrowding risks exposing detainees to inhuman and degrading treatment and can fuel violence within prisons. The committee is calling for more decisive political action, including a review of sentencing policies, greater use of alternatives to detention, and strict limits on prison populations.

Government Response Under Scrutiny

In March 2026, the federal government reached an agreement to expand the use of electronic monitoring. Convicted prisoners with sentences up to 18 months can now serve time under an ankle bracelet, while those with sentences up to 10 years can be released 1.5 years early under electronic monitoring.

However, experts have criticized the measures as insufficient. Pierre Lefranc of the Ghent Prison Monitoring Commission noted in an interview with VRT NWS that the government’s plan only affects convicted prisoners, who make up approximately 20 percent of the prison population. “Of the 240 people we have too many in Ghent, ‘only’ 40 to 45 sleep on the floor,” he said, highlighting that floor sleeping is just the tip of the iceberg. Approximately 40 percent of inmates are in pre-trial detention, and a significant number are forensic patients — mentally ill offenders held in regular prisons due to a lack of specialized psychiatric facilities.

Defense Minister Theo Francken has signaled that he would not rule out deploying soldiers to guard prisoners, describing the situation as “untenable.” As reported by Anadolu Agency, Francken stated: “Soldiers are not prison guards, but this situation is untenable. Overcrowding is a major problem. And I believe that prisoners should be punished humanely.”

Flemish Justice Minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA) has been sharply critical of the federal government’s handling of the crisis. “Over the past few years, at the federal level, people have merely passed on problems to alternative sentences and looked away from structural solutions,” she told The Brussels Times. “The result is the mess we now face. This cannot continue.”

Structural Causes and Long-Term Challenges

The roots of Belgium’s prison crisis are deep and structural. Sentencing policies have increasingly relied on incarceration, with political pressure for “tough on crime” approaches limiting the use of alternative sentences. Slow judicial processes mean that approximately 40 percent of inmates are in pre-trial detention — a driver of overcrowding that is not addressed by measures targeting only convicted prisoners.

Forensic patients — mentally ill offenders who should be held in specialized psychiatric facilities — account for a significant portion of the prison population due to a chronic lack of forensic psychiatric capacity. Despite new prison openings, including the large Haren prison near Brussels, capacity has not kept pace with the growing inmate population.

What’s Next

Prison directors have now appealed directly to the CPT, placing additional European pressure on Belgian authorities. The CPT’s involvement raises the possibility of formal condemnation by the Council of Europe if structural reforms are not implemented.

The government’s electronic monitoring plan has yet to be approved by parliament, and it remains unclear whether it will meaningfully reduce overcrowding given its limited scope. The question of military deployment to prisons — once unthinkable — is now on the table. Meanwhile, the number of inmates sleeping on the floor continues to climb, with no immediate relief in sight.

As the crisis deepens, Belgium faces a fundamental choice: implement the structural reforms needed to address pre-trial detention, forensic psychiatric capacity, and sentencing policy — or watch its prison system deteriorate further under the weight of its own contradictions.