Anouk Mertens studied Criminology at the Universiteit Gent and started her doctoral research at the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP) at the same university (supervisor: Professor Freya Vander Laenen, co-supervisor: Professor Tom Daems), immediately after graduating. Her doctoral thesis focused on the lived experiences of women subjected to an internment measure who resided in detention and in (forensic) care facilities, and was published entitled ‘Detentiebeleving van geïnterneerde vrouwen. Een follow-up onderzoek’ (Boom Criminologie 2019). After obtaining her PhD in Criminology in 2018, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the IRCP on the ForCare research project on the implementation of health care trajectories for interned persons. She joined the Department of Criminology of the National Institute of Criminalistics and Criminology (Federal Public Service Justice) in 2019. Her current research project focuses on how prisoners’ access to and use of digital media and technologies affect life in prison for prisoners and prison staff. Based on a survey instrument for prisoners and prison staff, she compares important regime dimensions (including the access to and use of digital media and technologies) between all prisons in the northern part of Belgium.