On 13th March 2025, the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice welcomed Dr Geertjan Zuijdwegt—criminologist and theologian at KU Leuven—for an expert seminar on small-scale detention and the Belgian experience of implementing this modality of punishment. In the past decade, small-scale detention has become an integral part of the Belgian penal landscape. With attendees representing prison NGOs, academia, prison education, and monitoring bodies, Zuijdwegt critically explored the utopic vision behind small-scale detention and its not-so-utopic reality in Belgian penal practice.
Despite the best intentions and a strong penal concept, small-scale detention currently serves to sugar-coat repressive penal policies, contributes to net-widening, is parasitic on existing prisons, and has introduced complete privatisation in sentence execution. The implementation process of small-scale detention in Belgium is an object lesson in co-optation. Following a 40-minute input (see below), Zuijdwegt then facilitated an open discussion lasting over an hour.
Audio Recording (click to play in YouTube)
Slides (click to view)
About the speaker
Dr Geertjan Zuijdwegt is a visiting professor at the KU Leuven Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies and Faculty of Law and Criminology. One day a week, he works as a lay prison chaplain in Leuven Central Prison.
