PRISON: AN INEVITABLE SOCIAL ISSUE

Luk Vervaet has experienced the inside of prisons, far from the stereotypical discourse that the media most often give. Far from the image of the barbaric, savage and inhuman prisoner. Through his experience, he was able to nourish his reflection on the prison and its place in our « modern » societies. 

Kairos: There are three important elements that link you to prisons: you have taught in prisons; you have followed the situation of Nizar Trabelsi and his transfer to the United States; you are involved in the problem of Haren with this mega-prison project. We will try to coordinate all this… So why Haren, how did you end up there? 

Luk Vervaet: for me, the construction of the mega-prison in Haren poses a challenge to what I call the only big city we know in Belgium, which includes four of the five poorest municipalities. The contrast is there: mega-prison/mega-poverty. I find that it challenges and also gives the opportunity to perhaps formulate alternatives, and to ask ourselves « what are wedoing ». Haren for me is a small light in an environment that is extremely dark. So there was resistance, something I didn’t see around Beveren where they built a prison, in Leuze they built a prison, in Ostend they announced its construction, they are all « very happy ». In Haren, there is a resistance and it is composed of the very elements we need: inhabitants as well as environmental activists, anti-prison activists, etc. 

No doubt that the struggles come together and that we arrive at a certain point at a form of common thought. The first inhabitants arrived there more because they did not want a prison next to their house; at the beginning they said that if it had been smaller, they would have agreed. There were those who came with a more environmental aspect, and those who came with a more prison aspect. What makes sense is that we arrive at a homogeneous thought. You, you came more in a form of opposition to the prison system? 

Yes, but in my opinion it is a mistake for the people who deal with the prison system, you can’t solve this case without asking a societal debate. This is primarily a prison policy, so it is a societal issue. 

In your book « Guantanamo at home », you say that Belgium could have at some point completely changed its prison policy and reflected on the subject. Instead, it has slipped completely into the American model. So my question: don’t you think that it is like a big chessboard, that if we touch the prison, we touch our model of society, the question of poverty but especially of wealth and inequalities, consumerism which as Niels says 

Christie « puts more and more objects to steal on the market », but also questions the failure of the school, the social fabric, the role of the media, and therefore that touching one necessarily implies touching everything and upsetting everything, in the end? 

Yes, I have nothing more to say (laughs), it’s well summarized. We’re talking about an evolution that has been going on for me for two or three decades. Things changed for the worse in the 1990s. And it is no coincidence that at the same time the extreme right appeared on the political scene. There is a global evolution. Politically you have a surge of the extreme right from the 90s, you remember the black Sunday when the Vlaams Blok doubled or tripled its seats in the Parliament. What I mean is that in the 90’s, you still had De Clerck saying « no to all prisons ». There are various factors that explain why we took this route. First, the general climate, the 90s, the beginning of the war in Iraq, the breakthrough of the extreme right after the fall of real socialism, the growth of poverty. Added to this was the Dutroux affair, which led to an unprecedented tightening of prison policy. Everyone was made to pay for the popular outrage. This has had an effect on the length of sentences, parole. And the much greater incarceration of sex offenders. Secondly, I think that discussions about prison should be done on a global level, in this sense the war on terror has had a hardening effect as well, especially on populations of immigrant origin. And so the association between terrorism and immigration appeared already in the 90s, but particularly after the September 11 attacks. So these three elements: the crisis and the rise of the extreme right, the issue of sex offenders, the issue of terrorism, all these elements form a whole and Belgian politics, which has no character at all, follows the movement, with politicians who follow the trend of the American track. It is often said that there is economic globalization, but this is also true at the level of ideas, and it is underestimated that economic and military domination is also transmitted at the ideological and political level. The dominant model also spreads its prison model. The European model, which was characterized by more humanism, less prison, this model is under pressure and is going backwards more and more. 

Can we exercise an autonomous penal policy without making a radical break with the United States? When we think of the universal jurisdiction law where 19 Iraqis attacked the American general Tommy Franks who participated in massacres in Iraq⁽¹⁾ or when the Belgian lawyer Jan Fermon is prevented from transiting through the United States to attend a congress in Costa Rica, one can measure the enormous power of pressure. 

That is why we cannot separate the prison policy in the whole… when I see the engagement of Belgium in the war against terrorism, the analysis shows that what has been done in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan is a catastrophe. So nothing has been solved, on the contrary, we have seen this fire that we wanted to extinguish spread throughout the world. Belgium has become a province or state of the United States. For example, in Afghanistan, the Belgians stayed until the last, unlike many other European countries that had already left long before; in Libya, the Belgians dropped more bombs than the British; in Iraq, they are again delivering military forces, such as F16s. So this commitment is a bargaining chip to have good relations with the Americans. It’s dramatic: we don’t even know that we are at war; the peace movement is dead. So, yes, it is obvious that we need a radical break with American policy at all levels. And perhaps establish good relations with the so-called third world countries. 

With regard to the TTIP and the influence it could have on the prison system in Belgium, is there any information? When we know that in the United States, there are many private prisons, that work in American prisons brings in money, we think that we could very well attack a State because it does not have enough prisoners or does not make them work? 

The question of privatization is also raised in Belgium. The formula they found: DBFM (Design Build Finance Maintain), is a formula for privatizing the prison that will not only commit two/three generations after us who will have to pay to become owners of this prison; and then, secondly, we know very well that as soon as the private sector enters a market, it is to make money. They do not have a social role to fulfill. So as soon as you bring the private sector into this, it becomes harder and harder to change policy because prisons have to be full and profitable for the private sector to profit. 

In fact, privatization follows the dehumanization movement and amplifies it. Nils Christie said in his book « when you see the offender as a member of another species, a non-person, a thing, there is no limit to the atrocities that can be done. This is where privatization leads. When you are a civil servant and you have to take care of an inmate, it is not at all the same thing as when you are a contract worker and you are just a pawn in a private company. Precisely on this subject, the question of Nizar Trabelsi⁽²⁾I have worked in prisons and I can understand that, having learned to see the humanity of the person in spite of the acts he has committed. But how can we talk about this with a person? 

Well, it’s pretty simple. First of all, he served his sentence in Belgium until the last day without a leave of absence, without the right to parole, and this was further extended so that he would pay by doing time in prison. He did 10 years first and finally 11 because he had a fine he couldn’t pay. 

So when he was transferred his sentence was almost over? 

Not almost, it was 100% finished. So he was still in prison waiting for the extradition decision, that’s the only reason. So I wrote:  » Why do you keep someone for 11 years in prison when he was sentenced to 10? So they told me  » no, no, we’re talking about a new case, now he’s only in jail because he’s waiting for the decision on his extradition. »

The United States wanted it? 

The United States has wanted this since 2008. 

And what did the government get in return? 

Nizar Trabelsi is part of a war currency… by accepting all the demands of the United States, we look good and we are in the top ranking. 

Moreover, De Crem was at one time proposed as head of NATO. 

He missed, but maybe after, the political career is long… What you say about Trabelsi is quite simple: I am not asking for any sympathy for these ideas, the question here is « is there a category of people in this country for whom the famous Declaration of Human Rights should not be respected ». For me, human rights are for the people who don’t have them, that is to say those who are really on the margins. And this is the test of what « Declaration of Human Rights » really means. What I mean is: « He served his sentence, he was illegally extradited to the United States, the European Court of Human Rights condemned twice Belgium which asked to examine the file to know if Nizar Trabelsi ran a risk of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment ». 

He has been in solitary confinement for two years? 

Now, yes! Belgium then said: « We are willing to respect your decision, but in the meantime, can’t we extradite him? The European Court said « no! and you are warned that if you do so, you will be subject to sanctions ». 

They were fined 90,000 euros, right? 

Yes, it is a political sanction, but they don’t care: they calculate « what it costs us if we leave Trabelsi here »… I ask for the minimum for all people, but even this minimum becomes dangerous for the people who are on their lists of extremists. 

I find, and this is part of the discussion about the mega-prison, that there are certain categories: dangerous criminals, unmanageable psychiatric patients, terrorists, these categories are, in my opinion, put into a Guantanamo type of system, and apparently we can afford anything. You take the case of Farid Bamouhammad, called Farid the madman by the media, but what this guy lived is inhumanity but never seen. Is the situation of the 1,100 psychiatric patients in our country acceptable? The answer is quickly given. Secondly, the treatment of terrorist suspects is Guantanamo-like for me as well. Belgium has collaborated with Guantanamo through extraditions and at the same time we see the import of Guantanamo practices on our territory. For example: there will soon be the trial, in April 2015, of nine policemen who took service in the prison of Forest, and who made reign a regime like in Abu Ghraib. Hooded policemen who brought a detainee, stripped him naked, forced him to insult the prophet, his mother, until he cried. Then they said,  » You cry like a child. The policemen put aside the director of the prison and the guards who wanted to protect the inmates, so they made a coup in this prison. In 2013, the case was dismissed. It is only because the lawyer De Beco continued the complaints with one of the detainees that there will be the trial in April. For me, this illustrates the infiltration of American practices, invisibly, on the margins. And in this context, the first responsible are not the police officers, they are those from above. There is a culture, an atmosphere, a policy that leads to such things. 

I also think that this dichotomy between the good and the bad is maintained by the media, by the police series, everything that prevents us from putting ourselves in the place of the other, in this humanistic vision where we say to ourselves: « The other could have been me ». For me, my first job in a prisoner support service was really a school for critical thinking. But I think a lot of people are still in this idea of schism between the outside world/prison world, where you don’t care about the prison. But when you go behind the walls, you realize the show. So what is happening with Haren can be a lever to make more people aware. I wanted to hear from you about what your experience with prisoners has meant to you? 

I have given a lot, yes I have received respect and appreciation for my work, that’s clear. The fundamental question for me is that we are losing a lot of humanity, of empathy for the other, and therefore we are in a dangerous situation in the sense that there is a state fascism that is not for the majority but for a minority. When I think that the concentration camps in Nazi Germany were only a result of the policy that was carried out before, where the delinquents, the asocials, the sick were targeted, this was done with the applause of the majority. What we are witnessing today: « yes, we must hang the terrorists, execute them », that’s what we can read in the comments. In this sense, what interests me is not the violence of the minority, although I condemn it, let’s be clear, but it’s not difficult, but the question that arises is « where is the violence of the State and do you see this invisible violence? It is necessary to lift the veil on this and to expose this civilization and this so-called humanity which have become only words for this category. 

Haren answers a little bit to that, they anticipate, so now the prisons will be « human », there will be central places like a village, no more bars on the windows… 

The issue of prisons has become a selling point to get a seat in parliament, senate, etc. This is an issue that can get you elected. Stefan De clerck and Didier Reynders, before the 2009 elections, they organized an event called PrisonMake, at the Beaux-Arts, it was on a Wanted poster. It was to present the new prisons of the Masterplan. It wasn’t a consultation at all, it was an information to state how they were going to do it. Before, there was Dewaele, who organized the prison of Tongeren, which was closed for a while because it was too old, they turned it into a museum-prison, and then they reopened it as a prison for young people. We campaigned to keep this prison-museum, and what did Dewaele do, just before it opened, he organized what he called a jailhouse lounge. These are now the words of our politicians. So we drank champagne in the cells, we danced in the courtyards, shame on us! What we see now through the new prison in Beveren is the model of the new prison policy, and I am sure that the prison in Haren they want the same thing, the international model, the « prison village ». I have a friend who visited the new prison in Leuze who said to me: « I could not survive in there, there is an absolute silence, you do not even hear the opening of the doors, you do not hear your neighbor, you can no longer shout in the yard ». What I loved about Saint-Gilles is that there is still life. These are the graves they build. In Beveren, a few months after the opening, 17 prisoners wrote a letter saying that it was impossible to live there. And there is a small detail in the luxury that it presents, it is that you must have the money to pay for it. 

The central problem is that prisons have become dumping grounds for waste. We manage waste. 

Interviewed by A.P., March 2015. 

Photo: Jean-Marc Bodson