“Standardization” must remain the compass
The 2025 annual report reaffirms a clear line: the response to juvenile delinquency cannot be reduced to repressive logic. The Commission for Monitoring Places of Deprivation of Liberty of Young People emphasizes the dynamics of the IPPJ and the CCMD, which aim at the social reintegration of minors via an educational and restorative approach. In several IPPJs, however, young people experience deprivation of liberty primarily as a sanction. “When you are between four walls, four bars, four fences, you say to yourself : what am I doing there, big ?”
We must guarantee, within the walls, living conditions as close as possible to what exists outside – what we call “normalization”. “This must remain the compass of support.” Which requires maintaining family ties, access to education, cultural and sporting activities, etc.
These essential levers of reintegration exist, but they remain fragile and unevenly ensured in the different institutions, underlines the report.
The happiness of young people is decreasing in Belgium, and there is a clear culprit…
Visual control, without listening
Example: systems are put in place to allow visits to all IPPJs. But, on the ground, there remain big obstacles. The institutions are all far from urban centers and train stations, which accentuates the difficulty of access for the most vulnerable families, without vehicles. Half of the young people placed in IPPJ are from Brussels: the distance harms the maintenance of family relationships, which is nevertheless one of their rights.
In certain institutions, due to a lack of suitable infrastructure, monitoring of visits takes place with open doors, harming privacy and freedom of speech. Installing a glass door allowing visual control without listening would be a simple solution.
No angst, however. The management and teams of several IPPJ report a growing difficulty: contact attempts by adults linked to drug trafficking networks who exploit young people as part of their criminal activities. “This tension calls for proportionate responses, based on the law, while remaining realistic about the risks”the report says.
Faced with teenagers in conflict with the law, are we moving towards “all confinement”?
“In ten minutes, we don’t know how to tell anything…”
For the telephone, the other means of staying in touch with loved ones, the framework is almost the same everywhere: young people are entitled to at least three ten-minute calls per week. With one caveat, noted in the annual report: the addition or deletion of call slots is used as a reward or punishment. “In ten minutes, you can’t tell anything. And when we haven’t finished, the educators still cut off the phone directly.” says a young person.
The confidentiality of communications also remains a point of vigilance. Young people express discomfort when the telephone is connected in the educator’s office, near the entrance or the surveillance post. The use of a landline wireless telephone, allowing the young person to isolate themselves in a room, would be more appropriate, underlines the Commission.
The Belgian state is condemned: it must find a suitable accommodation solution for Alice, 14 years old, placed in IPPJ without having committed any crime
A central paradox
The visits carried out in 2025 highlight the clear intentions of professionals in the field: they want to provide individualized educational support with young people. But between this principle and the practices, “largely determined by security”there is like a big gap. The teams also remain largely dependent on staff shortages and faulty infrastructure.
The report highlights a paradox: committed, united and creative educational teams, which find themselves confronted with persistent structural difficulties. This limits their room for maneuver and weakens effective respect for the rights of young people.
*À Braine-le-Château, Fraipont, Jumet, Saint-Hubert, Wauthier-Braine and Saint-Servais (for girls)
