With the Easter agreement, the Minister of Justice, Annelies Verlinden, received the green light from the government for an emergency law aimed at fighting this overcrowding. For the sentences of up to three years, prison should become the last resort, which means that judges will have to motivate why they do not offer an alternative pain. For prison terms of up to six months, they will even have to impose an alternative sentence.
Minister CD&V thus returned to a measure taken by its predecessor Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD). Under the past legislature, he had imposed that persons sentenced to a prison sentence of under three years old actually purge their sentence. The measure was controversial due to the lack of space in prison already shouting at the time. Under the emergency law, sentenced to an imprisonment of up to three years can benefit from early release after having a third of their sentence. They can be released after only six months for an electronic bracelet.
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The text also makes it possible to prevent the authors of serious crimes such as intra -family violence, incest or child abuse from serving their sentence using an electronic bracelet at the address of the victims. This provision follows the attempted feminicide which occurred in Houthalen-Helchteren, in Limburg, where a man on prolonged prison leave burned his partner long.
