The Minister of the Interior, Luis Alberto Heber, had reported on October 29 that a drop in homicides was reported at the national level, taking as a reference data only from Montevideo, which resulted in erroneous information released to the public.
“The figures for October I am not going to give them because it is a mistake,” said the hierarch on Thursday when consulted by the weekly Search about the truthful figures that he did not give.
Heber added that the ministry will wait for “the end of the quarter” to compare the last quarter of 2021 with those of 2019 and 2020 to determine if there was indeed a decline.
“In addition, in this quarter we will be able to compare without a pandemic, because from October to December of this year there will be full mobility. There will be a much more accurate comparison for those who question the fact that the drop in crimes is due to the pandemic, “added Heber, who previously held the post of Transportation and Public Works.
He remarked that “absolutely nothing” was changed in the way that the Ministry’s National Observatory on Violence and Criminality measures the incidence of crime and recalled that the undersecretary, Guillermo Maciel, has questioned the Broad Front, assuring that “he left for months, did not leave finish the month and gave the conclusion of a month on the 24th ”.
Deaths in prisons
In the middle of the week, Heber appeared before the General Assembly’s Commission for Monitoring the Prison System for almost four hours and was consulted by legislators about the increase in deaths within the prison system.
For the minister, it is “partially true” that there are a record number of deaths within prisons because non-violent deaths should not be counted.
“It is partially true to affirm that there is a record in the 71 deaths in the national prison system (…) because 38 are due to natural death, verified by doctors; there is a growth in deaths, but there is no growth in homicides, and there is a drop in suicides, “he said.
Regarding the subhuman conditions in which inmates live in some prisons, he stated: “There are prisons in the country that rehabilitate and modules that have serious drawbacks,” said Heber, adding that four modules of the former Comcar are in “a truly inhuman situation.” , something similar to what is lived in the Canelones prison where there are “terrible conditions”.
