Brussels, Belgium – Bilal knows life behind bars.Over the past 10 years, the 34-year-old has served a sentence in five prisons across Belgium. He most vividly recalls conditions in Mons, a 19th-century prison near the French border, where he said 9-square-metre (97-square-foot) cells housed three to four detainees. He remembers bouts of scabies, bed bugs and monkeypox spreading widely and guards who faced severe exhaustion.“During my 10 years in prison, things only got worse,” Bilal told Al Jazeera on condition that we use only his first name. “They took away some of our time outside of our cells, various activities.”Belgium, one of Europe’s richest countries, is grappling with a deepening prison overcrowding crisis.In mid-May, its 39 prisons counted 13,733 inmates – significantly exceeding a capacity of 11,064, according to data provided by the directorate-general of prisons.“The combination of ever-increasing overcrowding and staff shortages makes the situation very, very, very difficult,” warned Pieter Houbey, vice-chairman of the Central Prison Monitoring Council (CCSP), an independent watchdog.“It’s become almost impossible to maintain a detention system … aimed at reintegrating people,” he said.In mid-May, 754 detainees were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, up from 672 in December.Across Europe, prison populations have increased dramatically since the COVID-19 pandemic, with overcrowding affecting one-third of prison …
