The Belgian federal government
is worried that short prison sentences could actually encourage small-time
criminals to break the law again and argues that such punishments are
ineffective and expensive.
The country’s justice minister
Koen Geens, an MP for the centre-right Christian Democratic and Flemish party,
said short prison sentences were not helpful.
“A short prison sentence, a
try-out in jail, rarely leads to good results. It does not contribute to
re-integration, but helps inmates to learn bad habits,” Mr Geens told MPs on
the announcement of the measures.
“Usually we take bad habits
when we are so shortly in prison, there is little human improvement,” he added.
