War on drugs in Belgium: the cost of impunity

Summary:

The article says Belgium is losing the war on drugs, shown by rising urban shootings, corruption and smuggling in prisons, overcrowding and violent incidents linked to organized crime. Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden is asking for an extra €1 billion (half for operations, half for buildings) while the government searches for €12 billion in the budget; proposed actions include tougher sentences for drug bosses, mandatory prison drug tests, making wealthy inmates help pay incarceration costs, and Defence Minister Bernard Quintin has suggested deploying soldiers on city streets. The piece argues that better management of justice is needed but is a long-term project, and that Belgium is in a state of emergency with "no-go" urban areas, investor flight and unprosecuted crime forcing hard budgetary trade-offs between stopping financial decline and addressing societal decay.

A feeling of impunity undermines citizens' trust in justice, politics and "the system". The cost of that is almost impossible to calculate.