The director of Coexistence and Citizen Security of the Ministry of the Interior, Santiago González, has become in recent weeks one of the standard bearers of the campaign to defend the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC), but several of the assertions have been scrutinized by the national and international press, and by opposition political actors.
At the beginning of November he published on his social networks that “if the LUC is repealed, the article that allows the Police to request identification of both CI and car or motorcycle documents is repealed?”, Something that was widely discussed on social networks with arguments to for and against.
The high hierarch alludes to the referendum against the 135 articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration, assuring that its repeal would prohibit the public force from asking citizens and citizens for the ID if they consider it necessary.
Is there a punishment or not?
Then, it was added with another equally controversial assertion: “Do you know that if the LUC is repealed, those deprived of liberty who escape from their jail will have no consequence whatsoever?”
This sparked another mile-long discussion of tweets between those who defended what he says and those who criticized him claiming it was misleading or incorrect. The news agency joined the debate Agence France-Presse (AFP), through its fake news verification unit (fake news) AFP Factual.
According to the publication, the LUC introduced the crime of self-evasion, which punishes with between 12 months and 5 years in prison the person who escapes from prison while serving an effective sentence; This is activated when the individual uses force or violence to flee and even applies to those who do not return from their benefit from temporary exits.
In its publication, the Minister’s hierarch assures that those deprived of liberty “will not have any consequence” if the relevant LUC article is repealed, but this is false, as confirmed AFP Factual.
The legislation in force before the LUC said that inmates who escaped with violence, such as attacking someone or breaking a lock, were punished with the same penalty of 12 months to 5 years in prison. The same penalty applied if they did not return from their transitory departures.
“Self-evasion without violence was not foreseen as a crime, therefore, it had no penalty. It was considered ‘a conduct of administrative type with sanctions that could be, by the way, complicated, in the sense that you lost privileges or benefits that you had: from temporary exits to certain tasks or jobs that could teach in jail ‘, commented to AFP Factual German Aller, Director of the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology of the Law School of the University of the Republic.
Pedro Montano, doctor in Criminal Law, added that whoever escapes in any way from jail violates the factor of “good conduct”, and “it is a sign of misconduct to have escaped, even when it is without violence.”
This misconduct is entered in the file of the person and the judge who review the fact and withdraw benefits that have been obtained with the good conduct. “I mean, it’s never like there were no consequences.” In general, “it is about bringing [al fugado] to another block or jail for two reasons: one, for punishment; and the other, even for their own safety, “said Montano.
It is true that the previous version of the article of the Penal Code did not mention violence towards people on the run, but there are other articles that apply in case of assaults, such as the attempt or the disrespect.
“The crime of private violence it is ‘the basic figure ‘ of the exercise of violence against people ”, he said to AFP Factual Eduardo Sasson, vice president of the Uruguayan Criminal Lawyers Association. In the event that this violence leads to injuries, there are also articles that contemplate punishments depending on their severity (1, 2, 3), he added.
