The Bare Minimum

Luxembourg's prison population jumped from 737 to 851 in a single year. That is a 15% increase, and it has pushed all three of the country's prisons close to capacity. The numbers come from Serge Legil, Director General of the Luxembourg Prison Administration.

The Uerschterhaff prison opened in December 2022. It was supposed to ease the pressure. A modern facility, designed to take pre-trial detainees off the ageing Schrassig prison's hands. Three and a half years later, it is full too. The brief respite is over.

The cause is not mysterious. More police officers, more judges, more convictions. Luxembourg is at the heart of Europe, and many routes pass through it. Legil pointed out that many detainees have no real connection to the country. They are arrested here, often as drug couriers, because they passed through and got caught. They fill Luxembourg's prisons because they were passing through.

The Association of Prison Officers, led by president Samir Djennas, is sounding the alarm. Staff are working with the bare minimum. When you are short-staffed, there is no time for the reintegration work that was supposed to be the point of the 2018 reforms. Those reforms redefined prison officers not just as guards but as professionals supporting inmates back into society. That vision is now colliding with the reality of overcrowding and violence.

Officers are being called back from days off to cover for sick colleagues. The staffing ratio set out in the reform has not been met. The association's demand is simple and not new: more staff. But Legil cautions against seeing hiring as a cure-all. Prisons reflect the complexity of society, he says. Inmates have specific profiles. The issue is multifaceted, and so must be the solutions. More staff is needed, but the relationship is not directly proportional.

On the question of safety, the Prison Administration is considering deploying pepper gel, already in storage but not yet in use, to protect officers in escalating situations. Djennas is sceptical. He compares it to the army or the fire service stocking up on equipment, always hoping they will not have to use it. Neither more deterrent tools nor more staff alone is a solution, he says.

So here is where things stand. A prison system built for fewer people, a reform designed for more staff, a population inflated by people who were just passing through, and officers who are burning out. The 2018 reforms aimed to make Luxembourg's prisons more humane. The 2026 reality is making that harder every month.

Yesterday, the story was the number: a 20% increase in incarceration rate. Today, the story is what that number looks like from the inside. Eight hundred and fifty-one people in a system that was already stretched, with staff who are asked to do more with less, and a reform that promised better but has not been resourced to deliver it.