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Justice Minister urges courts to stop sending offenders to prison

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September 10th, 2013 (InsideCostaRica.com) Justice Minister Ana Isabel Garita is asked the courts to establish alternative measures to prevent sending more people to prison during a meeting yesterday with the Full Court to discuss prison overcrowding in the country.

 

Garita said she is working to tackle the problem of prison overcrowding both by increasing infrastructure as well as seeking alternatives to prison sentences.

 

Garita’s ideas for alternative measures include pardons or parole for those sentenced to less than three years.  The decision between a pardon or parole would be at judges’ discretion.

 

Garita said that the country’s prison system currently has a capacity to incarcerate just over 9,000 prisoners, but has 13,754 prisoners in its cells.

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  • prdatki

    Why not have the prisoners build more prisons ?To day they do nothing , the young ones learn from the older ones how to improve there crimes. If they worked 13 hrs a day 6 days a week , they might not have the disire to commit more crimes.

    • Oliver Wendell Holmes

      You’re kidding right?
      They’d build an escape-proof prison, no doubt.

  • Scott M

    i am not sure what the general average for % of criminals from a total population, but i doubt .002% is realistic. This Judge, this government needs to look at overhauling the entire legal, judicial and incarceration system as a whole. yes expensive, yes a longer term goal, but crime is out of control in Costa Rica very simply because the laws are antiquated and need to be changed, and made much more severe, thus more criminals in the prison thus the need for more prisons. It is time to bite the bullet and deal with this. Costa Rica is a criminals paradise. Is that not evidence enough that the system is broken? Tough pill to swallow ut it needs to be done.

  • Joe1047

    I am surprised they don’t just ask the Chinese to build some new ones for them.

  • PublicEnemy2u

    If you think sending less criminals to prison will work, so will sending less tourists to criminals. I hear the cartels are hiring and don’t care if the roads suck.

  • con yellow

    Yes build more prisons, a no brainer. So many crimes here are committed by repeat (20~50 previous) offenders. Lock them up. And this guy wants to put them back on the street so they can rob, rape and even kill.

  • Ken Morris

    Out of curiosity, I just calculated the incarceration rate at a bit over 300 per 100,000. This is lower than the US at 743 and Russia at 577, but higher than Canada’s 117 and China’s 120. Since CR has a relatively young (thus crime-prone) population and attracts foreign criminals, it probably shouldn’t have incarceration rates as low as say Canada’s, but on the other hand its rate is already 2.5 times higher than Canada’s and I personally wouldn’t want to see it as high as the US’s (the highest incarceration rate in the world) or Russia’s. Plus, incarceration is a notoriously ineffective deterrent for crime. It looks like CR may need to build some additional prison capacity, although the search for alternatives will probably pay greater dividends in the long run.

  • Aitor Xaranga

    CR needs to re-open San Lucas island on the Golfo de Nicoya, this time with improved humanitarian-minded facilities, designed to keep criminals well-fed, in idle bliss and perhaps we can all live in peace. Oh, and of course, we’ll need to raise taxes to pay for this new “resort”!

  • disgusted

    This is the mentality of Costa Rica or just Justice Minister Ana Isabel Garit?? Or is this part of President Chinchilla as well?? We have too many criminals and no more prison space therefore do not incarcerate them, WHAT! This is why crime pays and victims get no justice. I sort of agree with about every comment. More prisons beds a good thing.

  • mhogan

    The Justice Minister, the President, and the Government have turned their backs on law and order. God help all of us who live within the borders of this now-lawless country.

  • john anthony

    They will need room for the British backpacker now that he just got a 25 year sentence. Make that 13,755

  • M McD

    This is one of the dumbest things I have heard in this country. “We don’t have room so lets let criminals go and send fewer in.” Build more goddamn prisons and get rid of this bullshit that prior criminal acts may not be introduced by the prosecution at court. As I understand it, when the accused stands before a judge, the judge may have zero knowledge of their previous criminal behavior and, even if they do, must rule based solely on the facts of the case before them, regardless of the accused being a threat to society.What is this, the country of 1000 strikes and you’re out crime prevention?

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