Almost a third of prisoners in Belgium illegal

Of our country’s approximately 11,700 prisoners, 3,596 were residing illegally in Belgium at the start of the year, and this at a time when Belgium’s prisons are struggling with serious overpopulation. The N-VA therefore wants the federal government to step up efforts to call upon enforceable treaties so that prisoners without proper documents execute their prison sentences in their countries of origin. Most illegal prisoners come from Algeria (717) and Morocco (642), followed by Romania (339), the Netherlands (222) and France (178).