I remember the first statement the Minister of Justice made as soon as he took office, in the sense that not a single prison would be built for the next four years and that the solution to worrying overcrowding would be to reduce intramural detention. house arrest, entry-exit regime for work and weekends, reduced sentence etc. The overcrowding, which totals 17,500 inmates, will be removed by removing the criminals from the prisons. The easy road, but one that is dangerous and has unforeseen consequences for security, justice, order and citizen behavior.
The announcements took place in the so-called project of humanizing crime and prison policy, and its process began in Congress, of course in extra sessions, so that very little was discussed and approved as quickly as possible.
Let’s see the main pearls of the project: the maximum penalties for all convictions have been reduced; When it becomes clear that Inpec has never fully fulfilled its obligation to carry out an effective inspection of beneficiaries, the probability of being placed under house arrest is increased to prison sentences of up to twelve years (8 years today). Of the 64,000 people under house arrest, only 5,800 have electronic devices, and the serious thing is that those who left their homes to commit crimes have a proven recidivism rate of 23,220. How are you!
Even for crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and deliberate crimes against the public administration, even if 60 percent of the sentence has been served, they will be able to benefit from the residence.
To be clear, someone convicted of embezzlement and serving a maximum sentence of 17 years will be able to return home and study at a discount after 7 years. Suffice it to remember that today it is forbidden for the perpetrators of these crimes to derive any benefit.
And a person convicted of aggravated violent sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 14, who should be sentenced to 19.5 years in prison, will be freed within 7 years and 6 months. This is a good message for rapists and for society as a whole. In the same cases, probation continues by serving 3/5 of the penalty. Just as the concept of red-handedness equates to the admission of charges receiving all criminal benefits in the project, recidivism will no longer be a factor to be taken into account when determining punishment, just as the concept of red-handedness is suppressed.
Also, various crimes are suppressed to clear the congestion and as advertised. The section on criminal offenses such as slander and slander as well as incest, non-food aid has been removed, where it is enough to remember that 143,000 complaints were settled in the previous year, which I’m afraid will never be achieved if not classified as a crime. Behaviors such as unlawful election of candidates, rustling and fulfilling the commitments made with the so-called front, terrorism and competition cannot be preached while taking place within the framework of social protests.
The only criterion imposed in this bill is the removal of congestion. Victims of crimes with great social impact are deliberately forgotten. What will they think before the announcement of these advantages and discounts fair without a single action to compensate for the damage done? And what messages are we sending to crime as a society? I also wonder what messages are given to judges, prosecutors, police and members of the Police.
The solution, of course, is to build new, modern, dignified prisons with the capacity to re-socialize detainees, but the development plan does not include resources for this purpose. It mentions only alternative measures for restorative justice, criminal alternatives, non-custodial sanctions, administrative aid and prison sentences, and differentiated penal treatment. Everything, everything depends on the criminals and nothing depends on the victims.
It’s impossible to control an overwhelmed crime this way. To this initiative was added the presentation project, on which there will be time to comment.
GERMAN VARGAS LLERAS
(Read all of Germán Vargas Lleras’ columns in EL TIEMPO here).
Source: Exame
