The Government is working on a plan to address the structural causes of homicides in the country. It seeks to have the contribution of all political parties and meetings have been held and will continue to be held with the Ministry of the Interior to discuss the project. The Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, has advanced some details about the plan, noting that it will focus on working at the neighborhood level with people who have been linked to crime so that they have a different connection to the one they do not have with the Police.
The plan will be carried out in coordination with the Ministry of Social Development (Mides), which already has several programs and lines of work to help ex-inmates reintegrate into society. The goal is to understand and eliminate the causes of violence and resolve conflicts between criminal gangs in ways other than revenge. The Government has obtained financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) for the Comprehensive Citizen Security Program, coordinated by criminologist Diego Sanjurjo, who will also be involved in developing the plan.
The plan is in the middle of the design process and will be the central theme of a meeting that will be held in the coming days by Heber and the head of Mides, Martín Lema. Periodic conversations are also held between Sanjurjo and technicians from the Ministry of Social Development. The aim is to implement the plan as soon as possible, although it will be a gradual and long-term process.
It is important to highlight that the articulation between Interior and Mides is not new, and that the Ministry of Social Development has been working to strengthen the social integration of those who leave prison. However, with the increase in homicides in the country, it is essential to take measures to address this problem in a structural way and in a collaborative way with different political parties and organizations.
The espressos in the equation
The government’s plan to attack the causes of the homicides will seek to involve prisoners who have been reintegrated into society, since it is believed that they have a communication mechanism with those still involved in crimes. The Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, explained that these people have a different level of communication and language than the Police, and that this can help prevent the commission of crimes.
In relation to this, the Ministry of Social Development announced that in April it will implement a plan to improve access to food in the face of structural problems of food insecurity. The plan will consist of increasing food assistance, going from 1,400 to 10,000 meals a day in the metropolitan area, which will be delivered every day of the week. Various actions will be deployed to reinforce the National Canteen System throughout the country, and food distribution in the metropolitan area will be reinforced with the incorporation of five mobile devices in Montevideo and five fixed distribution points in the most distant peripheral areas.
