From 'Community Service' to 'Autonomous Work Penalty' in Belgium. What's in a Name? (original) (raw)
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From community sanctions to restorative justice. The Belgian example
2003
The introduction of a rehabilitative complementary approach shifted the interest partly to the offender and has lead to a growing number of penal reactions, which allowed it to take the personal characteristics and needs of the offender into account. The rehabilitative model has widened the scope of the action of sentencing and has lead to the introduction of a diversified set of measures and sanctions which include community sanctions but also measures of security to be taken against dangerous offenders. Individual and general prevention were the drive behind the new measures and sanctions.
Note de recherche de l'INCC, 2020
Peu de travaux portent sur l'exécution des peines subsidiaires, destinées à remplacer les peines principales en cas d'inexécution de celles-ci. En Belgique, l'inexécution d'une peine de travail peut entraîner la mise à exécution d'une peine de prison ou d'amende subsidiaire. La recherche dont il est ici rendu compte documente de façon inédite la mise à exécution des peines subsidiaires lorsqu'une peine de travail n'est pas (totalement ou partiellement) exécutée. Substitute sentences are intended to replace non-executed penalties. Legislation on the work penalty, introduced in Belgium as an autonomous penalty in 2002, provides for two types of substitute sentences in case of total or partial breach of the work penalty: imprisonment or fine. The use of these substitute sentences has scarcely been the subject of scientific study and remains under-documented. However, an initial exploratory study shows that their execution can heavily affect convicted offenders in a largely unpredictable way due to the discretionary power of the many actors involved.
The Community Dimension of Community Penalties
The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2008
Abstract: The recent history of probation supervision in England and Wales has seen a significant reduction in its links to residential communities; but, by contrast, visible ‘Community Payback’ is now a key feature of unpaid work penalties. This article considers why these contrasting developments are occurring simultaneously. It argues that the dominant reason for the evolution of the ‘Community Payback’ scheme is governmental preference for aspects of the ideology of the ‘new market state’ (Bobbitt 2002). However, it is contended that a more appropriate policy framework, capable of application to both unpaid work and probation supervision, would be a dual emphasis, in a community context, on: (i) civil renewal and community engagement; and (ii) offender rehabilitation.
Encounters of a different kind: Social enquiry and sentencing in Belgium
Punishment & Society-international Journal of Penology, 2010
This article draws on the results of multi-method research studying the discourse of Belgian sentencing judges and report writers in relation to the use and evaluation of social reports. To understand the Belgian context, the legal framework and its underlying assumptions, as well as the institutional and cultural background to the use and evaluation of social reports, are explained. Social reports focus on the social background of the offender. Their production is embedded in a rehabilitative framework of supervision and guidance which prioritizes community-based sanctions, but which does not fit very well with judges' neo-classical approach to sentencing. Our analysis suggests that the relatively marginal use of social reports in sentencing is an illustration of judges' professional ownership of 'their' decision, and adherence to their own penal culture. Judges base their decision making on an official legal dossier which contains many different 'voices', both judicial and non-judicial. Compared to other documents, such as 'moral' reports by the police for example, social narratives are accorded less authority. As for the international penological debate on changing penality, we see little evidence of actuarial risk-based practices in the sentencing phase. Social reports are still requested and constructed within an individualizing needs-based approach. On the other hand, although the Belgian picture is changing and heterogeneous, we can see that new public management techniques are beginning to find their way into the Belgian criminal justice system, paving the way for a more managerial approach to the implementation of community-based sanctions.
Belgian Prison Policy: Half a Century of Broken Promises
Journal of Prisoners on Prisons
Almost half a century ago, in 1973, I was locked up for a month in the prison of the Begijnenstraat in Antwerp. I was 20 years old when I got to know for the fi rst time about the interior of a police station, then a cell in the basement of the Antwerp courthouse, followed by a prison cell, the one in Begijnenstraat, 1 and fi nally with a courtroom. As a young activist, I had joined about 20 other people from Alle Macht aan de Arbeiders (AMADA, All Power to the Workers), a Maoist organization, in the dockers' strike of April-May-June 1973 in Antwerp and Ghent, a so-called wildcat strike-that is to say, a strike not recognized by the trade unions. It was the period "after May 68". AMADA was looking for a candidate to be its spokesperson in this strike and that is how I became the man with the megaphone. This would lead to my arrest and imprisonment, after a violent clash between police, strikers and activists on May 14, 1973. 2 The incident took place during a demonstration in which women dockworkers were beaten by the police armed with truncheons, to prevent them from going to the building of the ABVV (Flemish FGTB) union offi ces to claim strike pay. Some of the demonstrators, noticing that a police car from the specialist surveillance unit-the Brigade de Surveillance et de Recherche (BSR) (Surveillance & Research Brigade)-was tailing the demonstration, broke off. The violence they had just seen infl icted by truncheon-wielding offi cers on the mothers and sisters of the strikers had provoked anger and a culprit was needed. A few hours later, after the gendarmerie hermetically sealed the dockers' recruitment offi ce, the public prosecutor issued an arrest warrant in my name. But a dock worker had hidden me under a blanket in the back seat of his car and I was able to escape, although not for long. On May 15, I was sent to prison. One month later, on the day the strike ended, I was released. MEMORIES OF THE BEGIJNENSTRAAT Short as my prison stay was-many of my comrades received far heavier sentences in the years to come-I have vivid memories of my few weeks
Reducing the prison population in Europe: does community justice work?
2016
Conclusion p. References p. About the Authors p. 3 The concept of "probation" is conceptualized differently across countries. We use the broad definition adopted by the Council of Europe, which includes "the wide diversity of sanctions and measures that may lead a person to be placed under the responsibility of probation agencies in different European countries" (Aebi, 2015, p. 577
In recent years, the aim of offender rehabilitation has grown to become one of the most prominent features of European penal policy. European legal texts, however, lack a clear definition of this concept, thus leaving to supranational Courts the responsibility of clarifying its meaning. This article analyses the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EuropeanUnion as regards rehabilitation. It argues that the Europeanization of criminal justice is generally contributing to a re-conceptualization of this aim of punishment with relevant implications for the national criminal justice system and its actors. Finally, the article underscores the differences in the approach to rehabilitation between the two Courts, trying to assess their potential impact on national law and their significance in the broader context of European penal policy.