In November 2008, because of a lack of subsidies, the prison museum in the Belgian city of Tongres will close its doors.
Instead, the Belgian ministers of Justice and Interior Affairs have a new destiny for this prison: they want to reopen it as a centre for young offenders (35 youngsters to start).
For us, this choice is an illustration of the politics without perspective from the Belgian authorities towards the problem of the (young) offenders.
We ask that the prison museum of Tongres should be saved and developed as a tool within a real pedagogical project of prevention.
It is the only prison in Belgium and probably in Europe open to the public.
Nearly 200.000 people have visited it until now. Every prison cell is arranged to express a feeling linked to an emotion of life in prison: the time that passes, the frustration, the (in)justice.. A good number of school classes and associations had the possibility to discover the different prison cells, the showers, the surveillance... and understand a bit better how life in prison goes on.
In Tongres, former inmates like Jean-Marc Mahy, now a teacher, organise guided visits for youngsters in difficulties. For these youngsters a visit to the prison of Tongres is worth more than all the moralising discourses.
If the tools for sensibilisation disappear, there will always be a shortage in the number of beds for young offenders. It's not by replacing the prison museum of Tongres by a centre for young offenders that one will unblock the prisons for adults of tomorrow.
The cry of alarm from teachers to multiply the pedagogical projects and the posts of tutors capable to follow up youngsters in difficulty during several years is not heard.
Their claim is not only as pressing, but is more pertinent than the claim for new prisons and detention centres. On the 1st of March 2007, the Belgian prison population counted 10.008 prisoners for 8559 places (612 amongst them were under electronic surveillance). In 10 years, the prison population increased by 32.6%. 35% of the prison population is awaiting trial (Justice in numbers, 2007).
Without a debate on the society we live in, on the phenomenon of the prison explosion, with all concerned actors, to formulate real solutions and apply rapidly practical conclusions, an extension of the number of prisons will not bring a lasting solution for the overpopulation of the prisons.
Jean-Marc Mahy, instructor
Luk Vervaet, teacher in prison
List of the hundred signatories.
You can sign the petition on www.revuenouvelle.be
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This Project is sponsored by the European Commission through the Socrates Grundtvig Action 
Affiliated to "A Ray of Hope UNESCO Youth Ambassador for the Culture of Peace"
