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CHILE:
Prisons "Inhuman, Degrading and Cruel" - Supreme Court
Report
By Daniela
Estrada
SANTIAGO (IPS) - The Chilean prison system has again been
described as being in crisis, this time by a Supreme Court
report which pointed to serious problems related to
overcrowding, rehabilitation, food distribution, hours spent
in lockdown, punishment procedures and deaths of inmates.
Treatment of prisoners is "inhuman, degrading and cruel,"
said Supreme Court prosecutor, Mónica Maldonado, on Jun. 6
when she publicly released the report, presented on Jun. 1
to the Senate Constitution, Legislation, Justice and
Regulations Commission.
However, this assessment was rebutted by Justice Ministry
authorities, who highlighted the government's large outlays
on infrastructure and personnel in recent years.
"We believe the prison system is not in crisis, but
over-extended, because law enforcement is now much more
effective and has led to an expansion of the prison
population," said deputy Justice Minister Jorge Frei, who
nonetheless announced the creation of a public-private
commission to lay the foundations for prison reform.
The commission will be made up of the Gendarmería (the
prison guards' body) and the Justice and Interior
Ministries, as well as representatives from the private
Fundación Paz Ciudadana (Citizen Peace Foundation), the
Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), the
University of Chile's Centre for Studies on Citizen Security
and the Justice Studies Centre of the Americas (JSCA).
In her report, Maldonado says that since she was appointed
prosecutor in 2001, she has repeatedly reported to the
justice minister and the head of the Gendarmería about "the
deplorable living conditions in the country's prisons" due
to "overcrowding" and "the lack of a prisons policy and
concrete actions to enable inmates to rejoin society."
"The present consensus among the authorities and specialized
bodies is that the situation has grown acutely worse over
the last few years," her report says.
Since October 2003, the prison population in this South
American country of 16 million people rose from 38,266 to
53,482 inmates.
In an interview with IPS, Álvaro Cuadra, professor of
criminal law and researcher at the private Diego Portales
University’s human rights centre, agreed with prosecutor
Maldonado's assessment.
Cuadra said "violations of basic human rights" in Chilean
jails have been pointed out on numerous occasions by several
different bodies and experts, including the Organisation of
American States Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons
Deprived of their Liberty, Florentín Meléndez, who visited
this country in August 2008.
Maldonado recognised that six new prisons, which meet
international infrastructure standards, have been built and
are now operating as private concessions, but said they are
"insufficient to cover the shortage." More prisons are
urgently needed, especially in the three largest regions in
the centre of the country: the Metropolitan region,
Valparaíso and Bío-Bío.
For instance, the Santiago Sur Preventive Detention Centre
in the capital, built in 1843, has a capacity for 3,170
inmates, but currently holds 6,690.
The seriousness of the problem demands urgent and "creative"
solutions, said Maldonado, who added that the authorities'
customary reply that it was necessary to wait for "prisons
being built or still on the drawing-board" to be finished,
was "unacceptable."
In addition to overcrowding, Maldonado listed eight other
major problems, including the number of hours that inmates
are spent in lockdown in their cells, and the serving of
meals.
"The overcrowding is exacerbated by the inmates' being
locked up for approximately 15 hours a day in crowded cells
which generally lack toilets and adequate light and
ventilation," she said.
The prosecutor criticised the "lack of policies and plans
for the rehabilitation of the inmates, as well as a lack of
work and educational, sporting, spiritual and recreational
activities."
She also described the appalling hygiene and sanitary
conditions in some prisons. She particularly mentioned the
intermittent supply of drinking water in prisons in the
northern city of Arica and the Pacific port of Valparaíso, a
problem that has dragged on for at least four years.
According to her report, in one sector of the notorious
Santiago Sur Preventive Detention Centre the cells are so
crowded that some inmates have to sleep on mattresses in the
damp prison corridor, which is full of rubbish.
Irregularities were also found in punishment regimes and the
use of isolation cells.
"Although improvements have been made to the punishment
cells in some regions, it is still cruel and degrading to
lock a person in for up to 10 days in an empty cell, without
so much as a cot, mattress or blankets, which are provided
only at night," Maldonado said.
"These cells normally have no natural or electric lighting,
except for what filters in through a very small barred
opening. They often lack toilets and the prisoner is
dependent on the goodwill of the guards to be allowed out to
perform his natural functions, or for plastic containers for
this use. And reading is impossible," she said.
"In some cases, between four and six inmates may be shut up
in a single isolation cell, without enough mattresses for
them all," in contravention of prison regulations which
state that the punishment for the most serious breaches of
discipline - confinement for a maximum of 10 days - must be
served in solitary isolation.
Furthermore, Maldonado pointed out that Chile has signed
several international treaties and resolutions that "commit
and oblige it to abolish or restrict the use of isolation in
a punishment cell as a disciplinary measure."
Finally, the report says 30 inmates died in fights in
Santiago prisons in 2008, and a similar number so far this
year.
Another serious problem in the prison system is the working
conditions of the prison guards, who lack training, work
excessively long hours and are poorly paid, Cuadra told IPS.
"In these circumstances, the incentives for participating in
torture and corruption are quite strong," he said.
On another controversial topic, prosecutor Maldonado
affirmed that in some prisons, privileges are granted to
inmates convicted of drug trafficking, or who profess
evangelical faiths. This has been vehemently denied by
government authorities.
"The prison problem, which is still with us after all this
time, will not be solved by passing new laws, but by the
authorities having the political will to implement prison
policies, carry out the actions they plan, and evaluate the
results," Maldonado concluded.
According to Cuadra, "more use should be made of
alternatives to prison sentences, and more prison benefits
(such as weekend or work leave) should be granted, so that
there is more space within the prisons."
He also proposed "professionalising the Gendarmería" and
"improving prison infrastructure," because the prisons put
out to private tender, in spite of their improvements, "pose
serious core problems that must be corrected, if they are to
continue operating."
As for rehabilitation, Cuadra proposed increasing funding
resources, as in 2008 the Gendarmería devoted only 2.4
percent of its budget to this activity. |
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