DE GEVANGENIS Lara Staal/NTGent

How much idea do we actually have about who has to survive in these 'drains' every day? What is our shared vision of what should happen to people who break the law? How do we actually think about 'punishment' these days? And which voices are decisive in this?

After a performance about education ( DISIDENT ) and youth care ( SERDI ), theater maker Lara Staal is now making a performance about the prison system. Together with four ex-detainees, they delve into the history of the current detention model based on the central question: If we have known for decades that people leave prison worse than they enter it, why is it that we still continue and perpetuate the same model?

Life in prison is usually hidden from the public eye and takes place in the shadows. Sometimes it seems that banishing certain people to this 'underworld' is a way to keep the world 'above' clean and comfortable. What is this violence that we don't seem to see, on which our society is built? Can people from the underworld emerge again? And if so, in what way are they permanently scarred and changed? How has their view of society changed?

Belgium has been struggling with overcrowded prisons and outdated buildings for years and has been reprimanded several times by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and in 2014 even convicted by the European Court of Human Rights for violating the ban on inhuman and degrading therapy. In THE PRISON four ex-convicts analyze the current prison model. Through personal experiences they plead for a more humane alternative.