In Luxembourg, the debate about new prison places goes hand in hand with another question: what alternatives to imprisonment should be developed? The association « eran, eraus... an elo? » is calling for an examination of why more people are being detained and for the development of responses other than building new places. Justice Minister Élisabeth Margue, for her part, defends electronic monitoring intended to maintain stability and prepare people for reintegration, granted according to each person’s profile. These two approaches do not quite address the same question.
Building places or understanding admissions
Prison director Serge Legil has raised the possibility of opening a fourth, or even a fifth, prison. The association believes that increasing capacity is not enough to address the reasons for the rise in the number of people in detention. It is calling for these causes to be analysed and for a crime observatory to be set up, so that decisions can be based on more robust data.
The association attributes this increase mainly to stricter enforcement of criminal law and harsher sentences. It also disputes the idea that every new offence should lead to a prison sentence.
The number of people in detention alone is not enough to understand how the situation is changing. It would need to be considered alongside admissions, the length of detention and the various grounds for imprisonment, among other things. These indicators would help distinguish an increase in admissions from longer stays, without presuming the cause before the data have been examined.
Pre-trial detention raises a separate question
The association cites electronic monitoring as a way to ease pressure on prison facilities, particularly at Uerschterhaff, which houses people in pre-trial detention. This detention takes place before a final judgment, so it should not be confused with serving a sentence imposed after conviction. Alternatives considered for one do not automatically resolve the questions raised by the other.
Élisabeth Margue says that electronic tagging has not so far been used in pre-trial detention. She cites the risk of flight or evidence being tampered with as factors that may justify this type of detention. Her position concerns the safeguards and conditions needed to assess each case; it does not mean that the people concerned have already been found guilty.
This distinction helps clarify the debate. Reducing the number of people in detention may require different responses depending on whether they are being held before trial or serving a sentence. Data on admissions and the grounds for imprisonment would also make it possible to better identify where pressure on prison facilities is greatest.
A tag designed for the home
RTL notes that a pilot project for electronic monitoring was launched in 2006. The tag is therefore not new to this autumn’s debate.
The Luxembourg system described by the minister operates by radio frequency. A unit installed at the person’s home checks their presence at set times. It is not continuous GPS tracking: the system does not trace their movements outside the home.
According to Élisabeth Margue, this measure, which is less restrictive than prison, aims to maintain routines and stability in order to prepare people for reintegration. Whether it is granted depends on the person’s behaviour and profile. The minister does not consider it necessary to ease the current conditions immediately.
She reports that 27 placements were ordered in 2025. This figure refers to placements, not to an equivalent number of prison places automatically freed up: a tag is not a mechanical substitute for every form of imprisonment. The measure must be suitable for the individual situation and remains subject to specific conditions.
The same measure is therefore invoked from two different perspectives. The association emphasises wider use of tagging to reduce pressure on prison facilities. The minister presents it primarily as a measure to support stability and reintegration, granted where the person’s profile allows, rather than as a general tool to tackle overcrowding.
Decisions that need to be informed by data
The debate brings together several decisions that warrant separate consideration: prison capacity, the grounds and duration of detention, the conditions for granting a tag, and the resources devoted to reintegration. A new place addresses a need for capacity; by itself, it tells us nothing about how admissions are changing. Electronic monitoring can accompany certain sentences, but it does not replace every form of detention.
The request by « eran, eraus... an elo? » for an observatory is therefore aimed at providing a useful reference point beyond the argument over prison walls: information that makes it possible to track crime and criminal justice responses over time. Only then will the debate be better able to distinguish the effects sought by the different measures and the situations to which they apply.
References
- RTL: association calls for alternatives to building new prisons
- RTL: minister defends electronic monitoring focused on reintegration
Luxembourg Prison in Schrassig, April 1992. Archive photo.
