Towards Improving Humane Detention and Re-integration: New Roles in a New Prison Culture

ICPA2023 Presentation by Hilde Guffens and Mies Beckers (ICPA2023-PID012)

Authors

Hilde Guffens

Prison Governor, Project Leader, FOD Justitie - DG EPI, Belgium

Hilde Guffens graduated in Educational Science at the University of Louvain. After working in victim support for 8 years, she started her career within the prison service in 2000 on the project of restorative justice, both on local as on regional level. In 2005, she joined the Regional Direction North to support the local prisons and governors. Since 2009, she was appointed as prison governor to start up the federal center for juveniles, followed by managing two other prisons in the Northern part of the country. Since 2020, she is working as the Project Leader on designing and implementing new prison officers roles in the new prisons as well as in the small scale detention houses.

Mies Beckers

Governor, Prison of Haren, Belgium

Mies Beckers graduated in Criminological Sciences at the Catholic University of Leuven. After participating in an international exchange program on restorative justice and victimology in Regina (Canada), she studied at the Université de Montréal (Maîtrise en criminologie). During these studies, she did a research on mediation in de Canadian penitentiary system. After her studies, she started her professional career within the Belgian prison system as a restorative justice consultant in 2000, in two prisons and as coordinator at the regional level. Passing through the Regional Direction of the Northern part of the Belgian prison system, she started working as a prison governor in the prison of Leuven Centraal in 2009, followed by de prisons of St-Gilles and Haren.

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