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Will to Dream
                    
        

 2nd issue of the 
Prison Art Network
Journal 
   

 
Prison Song
Written by Anne Peaker Centre   

Hans Ingvar Romsloe has written a song about doing time in prison, and hopes that it could be a small consolation for people doing time. He says "Please listen to the song. You are free to use the song as you'd like. It is at the Norwegian state broadcast television homepage NRK urørt: www.nrk.no/urort - search (søk) for artist: hans ingvar. Or go direct to the

link: http://www11.nrk.no/urort/artist/hansingvar1/default.aspx

It is possible to listen or download the song from this website. The ‘listen' function is at the bottom (‘Lytt' in Norwegian; ‘download' is ‘Last ned' in Norwegian). If you like the song - please forward this (information) to any prison or prisoner you know. I am just glad if I can help anybody!"

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Save the Belgian prison museum of Tongres.
Written by Alan Clarke   
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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Last Updated ( Jul 01, 2008 at 05:37 PM )
Belgie
Written by Legs Boelen   

Photos from Belgium

The Belgian Photographer Lieven Nollet took pictures in Belgian Prisons

See his photo collection here http://www.lievennollet.be

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Last Updated ( Jun 21, 2008 at 04:09 PM )
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