The number of prison staff requesting psychological therapy after incidents at work is growing, according to figures from the Federal Public Service Justice. Among them are many prison guards who are the victims of verbal and physical aggression and threats.
“You have to be made of stone not to be deeply affected by threats like that on a note under your windscreen wiper,” says clinical psychologist Anouck Heulot. She is referring to a message left on the car of a prison guard in Mechelen that read: “Fucking prison guard, I know where you live.”
Heulot is a therapist at Pobos, a network of 200 therapists who help people who have experienced traumatic events, including prison staff.
It’s not one incident that is traumatic, but the multitude of conflicts that keep recurring
The FPS Justice works with Pobos to offer 10 free sessions to prison staff who wish to speak to a therapist. The number of requests from staff – not only guards – is increasing.
When the programme was launched in 2022, there were 19 requests for psychological assistance. This rose to 75 in 2023, 135 in 2024 and 108 in the first seven months of this year.
Support team
“Every prison has its own support team, which we have helped to train,” says Heulot. “Prison guards who have experienced something traumatic can go there immediately if they want to discuss something. Often, just being heard is enough, but if that’s not enough for them to process what has happened, they can visit one of our psychologists.”
Guards often struggle with physical or verbal aggression in their working environment, take threats home with them or are confronted when a prisoner takes their own life. “But usually it is the accumulation of many small incidents that causes the bucket to overflow,” says Heulot.
High pressure
“It’s not one incident that is traumatic, but the multitude of conflicts that keep recurring. Moreover, there is often a high level of work pressure.”
Pobos therapists are also involved in improving the culture of dialogue among prison officers. They train buddies who encourage prison officers to talk to each other, creating a culture in which incidents and experiences can be shared openly.
‘In prison, you come into contact with people who don’t always appreciate you doing your job’
The Prison Service reports 10 incidents this year in which an official complaint was filed for threatening a prison guard outside the prison walls. This is a slight increase on previous years.
Sometimes these are written threats left in letterboxes or under windscreen wipers, as in Mechelen, but there have also been cases where vehicles were damaged or a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a house.
In a number of cases, the perpetrators were prisoners who had enlisted the help of accomplices. The intention is to take revenge or intimidate prison guards. “In prison, you come into contact with people who don’t always appreciate you doing your job,” says trade unionist Robby De Kaey.
He advocates a stricter approach: “Perpetrators must immediately see the consequences of their actions in prison, for example by isolating them from the larger group so they cannot ‘infect’ others. It is really time to invest the necessary funds and political will to achieve this.”