Prisoners crowded into a São Paulo detention cell Sad Truth of Prisons

Ungar’s reading gives an insight on the prison conditions in most of Latin America. The prison conditions are much more than just a violation of human rights, but a sad example of yet another failed system in most of Latin America. All of the worst crimes happen in these prisons. The very acts that inmates are arrested for are continuous even in the constraints of “authority.”

Firstly the prisons are completely overcrowded. Most prisons are holding double the capacity they are meant to hold. Ungar uses many gives many examples of this with date from countries like Venezuela where facilities built to hold 15,426 were holding anywhere from 24,000 to 27,000. And even more shockingly Brazil’s 192,000 prisoners were being held in faculties with a capacity of 70,000. But why are there so many? The huge increase of arrests in the 1990’s is an obvious cause of the prison overcrowding. Here Ungar uses Table 1 to give more insight on exactly how much the prison population has risen. Ungar uses the terms “moderate” to “severe” to categorize to measure the over capacity.

A prisoner in a Rio de Janeiro police lockup The Forgotten

While there is a great increase in the number of arrests this cause of overcrowding also goes in hand with the slow processing of these prisoners. There have been prisoners sitting in prison for 2 years and have yet to even be convicted of anything. Or worst, there are even inmates that have served their time and have been forgotten! These inmates sit there past the time they were sentenced originally, with no word, and no reasons why.

Ungar also states that reforms have no real effect here. He gives the example of Peru. Even with reforms over half of the prisoners still awaited trial for an average of 2 to 3 years. To give better insight Ungar uses another table to show the percent in terms of capacity, unsentenced prisoners, and spending ( though numbers are vague here.)

A guard's hand rests on the grate of a heavy metal door leading to one of the five compounds of the Tatuape Women's Prison, in São Paulo, Brazil. The prison originally housed a juvenile detention center but was closed because of poor conditions. It was later reopened as a women's prison without any additional renovations.

No Funding

Ungar argues that the funding that is approved to improve these facilities is not doing anything close to that. With running a facility it is important to have a well trained staff, or just a trained staff for that matter. A prison is also responsible, usually, for the health of an inmate. Through pressure from the people and Churches governments have amped up their budgets for prisons, however Ungar says that these funds are absent or misused.

A better understanding of exactly how the budget is really used is the example given here in the reading with that of Argentina. Argentina had a budget of $32,000 per prisoner. About 80% of that $32,000 is spent solely on salaries (Ungar ,913)! An argument given by Ungar is that there is a deception in how they decide the budget. The budget is estimated based on food and health while in reality administration is where most of it goes.

With the budget not reaching the basic needs of prisoners unsafe and sickly prisons are the results. Prisons are being built even in the early 1990’s were built with no functioning plumbing. There are the absences of basic medical facilities and therefore the rise of diseases such as AIDS. With the budgets continuing to be cut there seems to be no end in sight for these poor conditions.

Medical unit Reforms to the Rescue?

There are 4 main reforms given to try to alleviate these poor conditions and holes in the judicial system. There is the alternative sentencing, institutional fortification, privatization, and last, the reform of the Penal code Process.

Alternative sentencing and releasing of prisoners was a great way to see results immediately. Ungar considers this reform to be “the immediate response to overcrowding.” (Ungar ,917). These reforms let out thousands. Some inmates were released if they had served 60% of their sentence, unless their crime were in relation to terrorism or drug trafficking. Other countries released prisoners whom were in prison for over a year without a conviction.

Alternative sentencing included some laws that suspended charges for first time offenders. Others offered suspension and community services appose to being sent to prison. Many themes for alternative sentencing involved community service.

II.

Institutional Fortification was meant to strengthen the legal defenses. Before this the numbers were horrific. While you were entitled a defense lawyer, you weren’t likely to get a good one or one that could spend a decent amount of time on your case. Ungar states that defense lawyers took on too many cases. He gives an example of how one prison had a1 to 300 ratio lawyer to prisoner. Ungar argues that in many cases many prisoners wouldn’t be in prison if they had just had a better lawyer.

Other changes under this reform were the creation of investigatory agencies like international ombudsman. These agencies investigated abuses, initiated recourse, and formulated policy. It also allowed the guards to be put under the microscope. It helped to mediate, inform public, and promote improvement.

III.

Privatization seemed to be the best opt for countries on a low prison budget. They simple started bid for contracts for the prison in terms of construction and design. Some countries eve granted private food concessions. Ungar states that the most extensive privatization has been with Chile (Ungar ,919). This, like most things, is greatly criticized because there is a fear of “over privatizing” if your will. To avoid too much criticism the governments have limited privatization to just construction and administration.

IV.

According to Ungar the “most promising reform “is that of the alteration of the Penal Code Process (Ungar ,920). Ungar claims that the old process slowed the courts decisions, and keep up with the arrests being made (Ungar ,920). It seems important to redefine the terms Ungar defines in this article. Sumario meaning investigation of a crime and Plenario meaning trial, are stages “rooted in the region’s European civil law heritage.” (Ungar ,920). Here Ungar goes into a little history 101 of the process in terms of reforms. These reforms were, in many cases, too late or lacked administrative support.

Therefore the need for reform was obvious. The new reforms of the two stages distributed the powers better and were characterized into two main changes. One change clarified roles and responsibilities of officials. This strengthened the sumario in terms of efficiency and due process. The other main change was simply written being replaced by oral, or inquisitorial replaced by accusatorial. This made room for more questioning and interaction in terms of finding the truth whether it was thru evidence or cross examination.

Is There Change on the Way?

With all things comes criticism or questioning. Can these reforms really help? Are these the simply fixes to these grave problems concerning Latin American Prisons? Ungar believes that the reforms are well designed however questions their long term stability. Much of the success lies in the hands of policymakers and administration. Corruption as seen in a glimpse from the Manzetti article is outrageous, so what could one expect from the prison guards? One change recommended is to strengthen the police force, however how can one accomplish that when they (police) themselves are involved in crime? Here Ungar gives examples of Police chiefs being fired because of corruption charges. Many police commanders are even being investigated.

The lack of proper training to run or work in a prison is also seen as a weakness. Accomplishing things like breaking up gangs or re-socialization (Ungar ,925) are seen as difficult tasks without the proper training being given. In general it is seen as “mismanagement” that could also lead to negative effects on the penal codes. An issue most seen is the “limited language interpretation” and then the limited time given in Semarios, and therefore leading to poor public defense.

Ungar’s main argument is that the “ongoing socio-economic crisis and governmental incapacity may allow for continuation of the previous conditions”( Ungar ,922.) One could agree with Ungar in terms that the reforms are a huge step in the fight to improve Latin American Prisons and the Politics that surround it, however there are still stigmas that are hard to look past. The growing economic inequality and poverty are only fueling the fight. The relentless crime surge will continue to make this an uphill battle.

Work Cited:

2) http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/gri/lowres/grin432l.jpg

4) http://www.hrw.org/reports98/brazil/photos/clothes.html

LINKS:

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts//commission/country51/52.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/234812.stm

Video:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/230000/video/_234812_s_sviic0700_vi.ram