Belgian prisoners pay nearly five times more than average for their phone calls. They use a 16 year old tariff which is much more expensive, De Morgen and Het Laatste Nieuws reported on Saturday. They were looking at figures Stefaan Van Hecke (Green party) got from Justice Minister Koen Geens (CD&V). The Green party wants the tariffs to be changed.
The Federal mediator has received a lot of complaints about the cost of telephone calls in prisons. These calls use a Belgacom tariff from 2002, which has become 5% cheaper (apart from international calls).
Minister Koen Geens says the new Prison Cloud digital platform, which will be up and running in 2020, will allow prisoners to make calls more cheaply from a laptop in their cell.
The Federal Mediator says that’s not enough and calls will still be far too expensive.
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The Brussels Times
