Educational Center Wortel: A Complicated Marriage Between Restorative Purposes and a Prison System

ICPA2023 Presentation by Ann Boks and Sofie Luyckx (ICPA2023-PID029)

Authors

Ann Boks

Management support, Prison management and detainee case manager, Prison of Wortel, Federal Justice Departement, Belgium

Ann Boks started working in prison in 2005 as a prison guard, gradually climbing to the management function she has today, in which she also follow up the files of individual detainees and makes suggestions for their re-integrational plans. For this promotion she had to re-educate herself, always choosing for courses with a focus on the humane part of working in a prison.
In the early years, she worked on cellular departments, followed by a period managing the employment of detainees in prison. So throughout the years she has worked with all kinds of detainees in variable settings and has gotten to know the majority of facets of working in a prison.
From the very beginning she has been fascinated by the ideas of restorative justice and detention. One of her main reasons to make a career out of this, is that she wanted to gain more opportunities to really connect with these people and help them make a successful return into society. She truly believes that the main assignment of a judicial system, even before punishing people, is preventing the reoccurrence of crimes by handing offenders the tools they need to build a successful and fulfilling life for themselves.

Sofie Luyckx

Educational coordinator, Vocvo vzw, Belgium

Sofie Luyckx started out her career as a high school French teacher. In 2017, she decided to make a switch and started working for Vocvo as an educational counsellor in the prisons of Wortel, Merksplas and Turnhout. She guided the detainees in those prisons individually through the complicated world of education, whether they wanted to study individually in their cell, look for a training in another prison or something to pursue after their release. Since 2020, she has been working as the educational coordinator in the prisons of Wortel and Turnhout, providing an array of classes adapted to the needs of the residing detainees. The largest part of her time is spent in the prison of Wortel where she organizes almost 4000 hours of class time. She works closely with prison security staff, directors, prisoners, caregivers, teachers and others in order to be able to offer a maximum of possibilities for the detainees. She strongly believes in the offering of chances to detainees so they can discover their own talents en strengths, without forcing them to take these chances, in order to be sure there is an intrinsic motivation. She’s convinced of the fact that detention should be customized to the needs of the detainees to maximize the chances of success once they return into society.

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