Our Penal Group director, Loreto Hoyos, spoke to El Mercurio about Chile’s prison system in the wake of the serious events of the last week.
The phrase pronounced in ‘Reportajes’ by the Minister of Justice -and the crimes inside the prisons that later complicated the Government- put on the table a discussion that for experts is as important as prosecution or preventive measures. The quantity and quality of prisons, overcrowding, the legal formula of the system and the role of the gendarmerie are part of the range of issues.
Gendarmerie has effective control of all the prisons in the country’.
The words of the Minister of Justice, Jaime Gajardo, -said last week in ‘Reportajes’- were echoed all week. And they will probably continue to do so.
Many in the political environment commented, this week, that the phrase ‘could not have had worse timing’. This because the day after the interview was published, the discovery of a decapitated inmate in the Biobío Penitentiary Complex was reported. Then, that same Monday, Evelyn Matthei and her team launched their proposal for prisons.
After that, on Tuesday, the government was just beginning to arm itself against criticism when another tragic news arrived: In the Alto Bonito prison in Puerto Montt, a prisoner had been murdered with more than 200 stab wounds.
That was not all.
Then, almost as a twist of fate, a new homicide was reported, this time in the Alto Hospicio prison.
These are three events that make up a total of 42 violent deaths in prisons so far in 2024. This is the highest number in the last three years (in 2023 there were 35 and in 2022, 29).
It is a number that, in addition, leaves, at least, seriously questioned the assessment of the Minister of Justice.
In this regard, experts and politicians have different opinions. But they agree on one thing: Chile’s prison system is either in crisis, or it is heading there.
With whom do we compare ourselves?
Does the Gendarmerie have control of the prisons?
For organized crime expert Pablo Zeballos, author of the book ‘Un virus entre sombras’ (A Virus in the Shadows), it is a phrase that may have some basis in comparison with other Latin American countries. But if we do the same exercise with respect to the Chilean reality of past years, the evaluation changes.
Ten years ago we had the same number of prisons as we have now. In ten years we have not worked on professionalizing the Gendarmerie corps. We have not worked on improving the forms of segmentation. We have not improved the ways of classifying criminally the subjects, despite the fact that today we have evidence that members of organized crime structures are entering, which have different logics than those we were used to. This comparison among ourselves leaves us very much to be desired’, he adds.
Loreto Hoyos, a criminal lawyer and director of the Albagli Zaliasnik Criminal Group, agrees and qualifies the evaluation.
In part there is control, because we do not see massive escapes of inmates. But if by control we mean generating and maintaining conditions that guarantee security inside and outside the penitentiary and the re-socialization of the inmates, we are very far from that‘.
Those who do agree with the Minister’s statement are precisely in the institution alluded to by the head of the portfolio: the Gendarmerie.
From there, the operational sub-director Leandro Pincheira details the arguments that would sustain that the entity would have control of the prisons. We know exactly how many people are being held, who they are and where they are being held,’ he says. At the same time, he adds that ‘our staff has access to every corner of the country’s prisons, exercising the work of surveillance and custody and managing the different situations typical of a prison system, such as escape attempts or aggressions between inmates, always in the perspective of anticipating and minimizing their occurrence, in addition to strong internal anti-corruption control measures’.
However, among experts, the outlook is not so positive. In fact, they affirm that there are several facts that would prove that control has been lost for a long time. Some, for example, recall the discovery of ‘vip’ cells in Colina 2, in 2019. And others allude to the 20-day riot that took place in the High Security Prison in mid-June of this year.
Segregated Precincts
Experience in Latin America – and even in the United States – shows that organized crime groups are often strengthened or even created inside prisons. This is the case of the First Capital Command, which originated in the Taubate prison in Sao Paulo; the Red Command, which was born in the Candido Mendes prison in Ilha Grande; or the very same Tren de Aragua, whose bases emerged in the Tocoron prison in Venezuela.
It is a problem that could also occur in Chile if the focus is not placed on a concept that is currently essential in penitentiary policy: segregation.
You have to have maximum security, medium security and minimum security prisons, to also encourage the exit of criminal circuits,” says Zeballos.
Daniel Johnson, director of the Citizen Peace Foundation, explains that ‘the effective isolation of inmates from the outside, allowing only selective and monitored communications; a segregation that avoids contact between members of criminal organizations; and a transparency system that allows authorities, citizens and the third sector to monitor prison performance, are fundamental steps to break the vicious circle and improve the penitentiary system’.
To solve this, Matthei’s proposal is based on Italy, a country that subdivides the different regimes into low danger, medium danger, high danger and maximum danger. This system has succeeded in stopping, to a large extent, the actions of the mafias.
However, it is a system that does not have consensus among experts, given that accumulating inmates who share the same thinking can facilitate their organization.
We are putting all the members of the Aragua Train together. It may be working now, because perhaps it is a controllable number. But there has already been a riot in the High Security Prison’, explains Liza Zúñiga, master in criminology, professor at the Usach and the Gendarmerie School.
Hoyos also says that this legal system ‘isolates prisoners even from their families. Not even the gendarmes can talk to them. It is excessive’.
A problem of space
‘Since December 2021 we have practically 47% increase in the prison population, the largest recorded in the country in such a short time. The situation is critical and the projections going forward are very complex’, said in these pages, in September, the then Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, emphasizing one of the main problems of the local penitentiary system: overcrowding.
For the working group that elaborated Evelyn Matthei’s proposal, the overcrowding is 140%. The most critical case is that of the Atacama Region, with 230%.
For Zúñiga, in some prisons ‘we are in a situation similar to that of the San Miguel prison fire’, he explains. And he adds that in Chile relatively modern prisons coexist with others that are ‘old, with a deficient infrastructure situation’. He mentions, for example, the Puente Alto and Copiapó prisons and, especially, the former Penitentiary, ‘which is a museum. It has a design that does not exist in the world and should not exist’. Hoyos adds that the priority should be to create other mechanisms that do not imply ‘putting so many people in prisons’.
According to some experts, a large part of this problem stems from the increase in the foreign population in Chile and, consequently, the multiplication of foreign inmates in national prisons. Hence, Matthei’s team proposes to expel 3,000 convicted foreigners.
It is key, because foreign criminals import models for committing crimes and territorial control within the prisons themselves,’ say the former mayor’s entourage.
However, another agreement among specialists is that, in addition to building new prisons, changes must also be made in the Gendarmerie.
Source: El Mercurio, December 15, 2024.
