Negotiating prison order: The particularities of prison treatment of CelEx prisoners in Belgium

Emphasizing a preventive dimension through the detection of radicalized persons, the Belgian prison policy on counter-radicalization includes a strong intelligence policy. Various personnel working in prisons are identified as being able to participate in a better flow of information. Among these are prison officers whose mission is to document daily, using observation sheets, all aspects of the social and individual life of prisoners convicted of or awaiting trial for terrorist offences or identified as being radicalized by the prison administration. Designated as the front line to detect suspects of dangerous islamic tendencies, prison officers are also caught up in mechanisms negociating the prison order with prisoners. By means of an ethnographic survey carried out in three prisons, this article shows how the fight against radicalization has impacted on the role and missions of prison prisoners and, more specifically, highlights the effects of the incarceration regime, depending on whether it is based on a policy of concentrating or dispersing the “target public”, on the management of prison order as well as on the relational dynamics between inmates and officers.