Drugs in prisons: more control and better guidance

These are hard figures that Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne uses during the presentation in the Ghent prison of his counseling program for detained drug users. At least once a month, the federal police dog team checks the cells of the detainees and visitors for drug possession. And those controls are being stepped up. Koen Lambrecht, advisor-director Prison Ghent: “Cannabis is the most popular, both weed and hash. And also still heroin at just under 15 percent. What is more surprising to me is the finding of what the detainees themselves indicate as a problem. A good forty percent talk about peppers: that is speed and cocaine.”

Intensive treatment

Doing nothing is asking for more trouble. Therefore, it is not only the fight against drugs that is being stepped up. There will also be professional assistance to get rid of the drugs. Vincent Van Quickenborne: “There is currently too little drug counseling in prisons. That is why we have now developed a new project. To finance that, we use the profits that the prison makes from the labor that inmates do there. The treatment will be very intensive. So we are going to provide a full-time coordinator and also enough staff to give those people individual and group therapy for 40 weeks to get rid of their addiction.”

After a trial period in Ghent, the judiciary is also rolling out the approach to our institutions. But striking: Bruges will not be among them. There is already a drug-free department there, says the minister. In Ypres we have to wait a little longer. Renovation work has just started there. And it will take two years.