Flemish Minister of Justice and Enforcement Zuhal Demir (N-VA) warns about the increasing number of people who are serving their sentence or pre-trial detention at home via an ankle bracelet. She wants certain punishments to be excluded from electronic monitoring, such as for radicalized persons.
Flanders is competent for electronic supervision, but not for those who can be placed under supervision. That’s federal matter. According to the minister, the federal judiciary is about to collapse and the federal states are increasingly being supported. The result is a “massive influx to electronic supervision”.
In concrete terms, the number of people with an ankle bracelet who are monitored at home by the Flemish Center for Electronic Surveillance increased from 1,500 at the end of last year to 1,908 at the end of March. “We built an extra digital prison in three months,” says the N-VA politician.
“Deradicalisation process”
But according to Demir, the overcrowding in the prisons should not be a reason to automatically place everyone under electronic surveillance. Certain penalties should be excluded from this. “Drug dealers who can continue to deal under ankle bracelet, pedophiles who are locked up at home with their underage victims, a couple convicted of domestic violence who served their sentence at the same address?. They should not be under ankle bracelet.”
She says she is particularly concerned about radicals who are at home with an ankle bracelet. “Following a deradicalisation trajectory, while the radicalization tap is open online at home, is downright dangerous.” Demir speaks of a dozen cases under ankle bracelet today “that may be triggered by the recent attack plans”.
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