In the last hours, the parliamentary commissioner for the prison system, Juan Miguel Petit, presented a report to the Senate Constitution and Legislation Commission on the draft of the Open Town Hall Law to grant home detention to those convicted and prosecuted over 65 years of age. .
“Today the parliamentary commissioner, Miguel Petit, was in the Senate. With legal foundations and knowledge of the prison system, he demolished the bill to release prisoners over 65 years of age, ”said the Frente Amplio senator, José Carlos Mahía.
Petit indicated that “180 inmates would be beneficiaries of a total of 14,100 prisoners currently in Uruguay.”
He added that of the 180 prisoners over 65 years of age, “40% are detained for sexual crimes, 14% for human rights violations, and others sentenced for serious or very serious crimes would also benefit,” Petit said. Mahía stated.
Major technical error
Petit presented a report in which he assures that he is a broad defender of alternative or substitute measures for prison, because they are more humanistic and efficient for the rehabilitation of the sanctioned person. However, he stressed that it is a “major technical error that home detention for people over 65 is automatic, mandatory, ex officio, and that it is not studied on a case-by-case basis.”
Petit indicated that the fact of agreeing with the alternative measures to imprisonment “cannot affect other principles of criminal law or annul the roles of the parties in the process, that is, the judge, the prosecution, the defense and even the participation of the victim ”.
It stated that such measures “cannot be adopted in a general and automatic way without analyzing the different criminal situations”, and “without studying the particularities of the perpetrators of the facts.”
Petit recalled that current regulations “already allow humanitarian solutions for prisoners such as old age, illness, and family or social situations.”
