In this article, we aim to achieve a better understanding of reintegration in Belgian sentence implementation. In concreto, we ask the question if Belgian sentence implementation courts 'are doing reintegration'. Our analyses suggest the existence of a reintegrated-oriented decision-making process emphasising the strengthening of the social capital of the offender and enabling reintegration. Notwithstanding, we identify some barriers to reintegration. Firstly, we describe how the quest for reintegration is constantly interwoven with a more risk-based approach. As a result, 'doing reintegration' becomes subordinated by risk, wherefore the fundamental social right of reintegration is reduced to a conditional right only applicable if the offender displays certain needs, poses an acceptable risk and/or is prepared to take responsibility for this actions. Secondly, we argue how the members of the sentence implementation courts believe in 'psychological individualism' and project their middle class values and expectations of how someone should live on the offender, further narrowing the scope of this concept. We finish our analysis by identifying some external and structural aspects withholding the sentence implementation courts in 'doing reintegration', leading to a nuanced argument arguing that Belgian sentence implementation courts are not doing reintegration, although they believe they are (trying)…

This article draws on the results of multi-method research studying the discourse of Belgian sentencing judges and report writers in relation to the use and evaluation of social reports. To understand the Belgian context, the legal framework and its underlying assumptions, as well as the institutional and cultural background to the use and evaluation of social reports, are explained. Social reports focus on the social background of the offender. Their production is embedded in a rehabilitative framework of supervision and guidance which prioritizes community-based sanctions, but which does not fit very well with judges’ neo-classical approach to sentencing. Our analysis suggests that the relatively marginal use of social reports in sentencing is an illustration of judges’ professional ownership of ‘their’ decision, and adherence to their own penal culture. Judges base their decision making on an official legal dossier which contains many different ‘voices’, both judicial and non-judicial. Compared to other documents, such as ‘moral’ reports by the police for example, social narratives are accorded less authority. As for the international penological debate on changing penality, we see little evidence of actuarial risk-based practices in the sentencing phase. Social reports are still requested and constructed within an individualizing needs-based approach. On the other hand, although the Belgian picture is changing and heterogeneous, we can see that new public management techniques are beginning to find their way into the Belgian criminal justice system, paving the way for a more managerial approach to the implementation of community-based sanctions.

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In recent years, the United States and England and Wales have witnessed growing re-incarceration rates. This growth is not only due to the courts sending more people to prison (‘front-end sentencing’), but also due to an increasing number of revocations of early release measures, mainly following technical violations of licence conditions (so called ‘back-end sentencing’). However, it is unclear whether the same phenomenon exists in other (European) countries. Therefore, we empirically studied prison recall decision-making processes in Belgium by file analysis, complemented with focus groups with the decision makers involved in the recall process of prisoners with a sentence of more than three years. We found that the recall process in Belgium is embedded in a strong narrative of ‘giving chances’ and that all decision makers deploy a large amount of discretion, which they use to make deliberate decisions in an attempt to facilitate parolees’ reintegration process. Non-compliance with imposed conditions does not automatically lead to recall and even when a parolee is sent back to prison, recall is framed by the decision makers as a step in the reintegration process, not the end of it.

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