Justice and prison relationships: the sentence implementation court

The Dutroux affair and a European movement of redefinition of sentence execution lead Belgium to reform the post-sentential field in 1998 and 2006. The sentence implementation court is now responsible for decision-making of electronic monitoring, semi-detention, conditional release and provisional release with an objective to remove the prisoner from the national territory or in view of extradition. The central administration remains responsible for the permission to leave and the interruption of the prison sentence. The court and the new distribution of competence established new relations and positions for every actor involved in the sentence execution matters: judge, prison director, psycho-social team, justice houses and administration. J. Bastard is looking for the chain of relation from administration to prison, and for communication, using semi-structured interviews and hearing observations. A first case study on one court and two prisons (in the court jurisdiction) will be complete at the end of this first year. This project is currently focusing on the articulation of administrative and judicial decisions. Confronting the rule of law to its implementation and describing the decision process and the role of every actor involved in the execution sentence, J. Bastard looks at obstacles and strategies inherent to conditional release. Two parallel but interdependent decision processes are highlighted by the different tools available and the making and evaluation of files, images of the construction of decisions.