Inclusive thinking in terms of detention seems like a strange idea. The location choices for new prisons speak for themselves. In the case of Brussels, the new prison in Haren was built as far away from civilisation as possible. On the northernmost border of the Brussels Region, the prison presents itself as a city within a city. It was a close call, but the Haren prison was not built across the regional border, at least according to a myth circulating in Brussels. The rule that a prison must be located on its own territory decided otherwise. The car park is still on Flemish territory.

Equally surprising is the inclusive design discourse in which Haren prison was packaged. There is talk of a prison village with small-scale units, a community regime and a fluid perimeter. A women’s section was planned on the perimeter so that it could function as a social facility for the neighbourhood; the plan was to house an industrial laundry there. The inclusive discourse is at odds with the large scale of the prison, which can accommodate 1,190 inmates – that is the combined capacity of the prisons in Bruges and Lantin. At the time, the action groups rightly referred to it as the mega-prison or maxi-prison d’Haren.