The corruption of government authorities and the lack of attention to the basic needs of inmates are the main factors that generate violence inside prisons and that allow gangs to seize control
José Antonio Pérez is General Director of Prevention and Social Reintegration of Juarez City, in Mexico, and is in charge of the third most populated prison system in that country, where Joaquín Guzmán passed, known as ‘El Chapo’; and where the fearsome Miguel Félix Gallardo, founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as the leaders of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Although Pérez is emphatic in mentioning that being in charge of this prison has not been ‘easy’, he explains that the corruption of the authorities, linked to bad resource distribution of a country is the main factor of overcrowding and violence inside prisons, not only in Mexico but in Latin America.
How is a prison system managed with these types of criminal gangs?
Now we see that gangs are extraterritorial as in the case of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, which have ramifications not only in South America but throughout the planet.
When we take responsibility for Jalisco Penitentiary System, what is he third most populous in all of Mexico, we note that the factor of overcrowding, overcrowding and, above all, the corruption of authority, By not meeting the basic needs of people deprived of their liberty, they were the generators of self-government and violence inside prisons. This was the starting point for establish a public policy in penitentiary matters that in the short and medium term would allow us to neutralize that factual influence of criminal groups within prisons.
How to reduce violence in prisons influenced by large cartels?
The modern prison system demands hard work. In Jalisco, the first thing we did was provide core services of all human beings such as health, food, work, sports and even recreational and cultural activities through a defined policy and a result that has allowed us to reduce violence in every human being.
The lack of a healthy, sufficient and adequate diet, and above all, the null possibility of having own income legally and continue helping their families abroad, means that most inmates have only two paths: 1) submit to self-government and the factual leadership of criminal gangs (which is the most common) or 2) run the risk of being attacked and mistreated in riots.
What the criminal gangs want is to create instability that allows them to continue controlling an internal market for drug consumption, alcoholic beverages, prostitution. I insist, they are aspects that are generated by lack of response from the State as authority.
Is a ‘negotiation’ possible?
As long as the causes that generate an event are not eradicated, the danger is always latent. Some are afraid of the word negotiate, but I think that if you should dialogue with groups from the interior.
We have realized that inmates undergo the self-government already gang leaders inside prisons not out of fear but out of need and hunger that they have before the state incapacity and the breach.
If the State stops providing food, the criminal gangs provide it, but they charge. If the State does not provide recreational activities, they are generated by criminal gangs. If the state stops doing its job, it is replaced inside the prisons by gang leaders.
The path, in Jalisco, has been for us to create jobs with decent remuneration. An intern can earn 1,000 Mexican pesos a week and this helps them to help their family. So we proved that when inmates have a way of subsistence, they don’t mind getting involved with the bands.
How does the issue of corruption influence?
I think that corruption own State and not recognizing that one must comply with a politics and with a obligation it has prevented reintegration treatment from being humane.
The violence that has been generated in the prisons of America has not only been the responsibility of the criminal gangs but from the corruption of the prison system that, for decades, was considered the scum of society, something dirty, something abandoned. This allowed many people corrupt will profit with the resources that should have been used to feed the prisoners, their clothes, studies and health needs.
The latest clashes, in Ecuador, were due to a dispute over territorial control of distribution inside and outside prisons.
When a state seeks to control violence and crime in the streets, it must first control its prisons. The State, in the case of Ecuador, must turn towards prisons, invest and act integrally with a Public politics that covers all needs and that allows prisons to cease to be crime schools, that they stop being the job market of the cartels and criminal gangs, because it is the center of ideal recruitment.
To the extent that the Government of Ecuador understands that it is not an obscure or illegal negotiation, but a real analysis, it will begin to take center stage in the needs of the inmates and their families.
It is essential that the power of attorney get involved and don’t have that clumsiness and slowness in criminal proceedings.
The Jalisco prison is the third most populous in Mexico. How to control overcrowding?
I’ll be honest, we haven’t reached that goal here yet. I have proposed to Federal authorities that the alternatives should not be preventive detention.
There are many crimes that should not wait for their sentences inside a prison and that technology such as electronic bracelets, for instance. The home confinement and other procedures are alternatives that the Law allows and that are reliable.
This prevents prisons from being saturated for one reason: most crimes, which are patrimonial, do not have a high social impact due to the danger of the person but, by putting them in the same center where the Jalisco Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, we allow them to have access to the criminal knowledge and that they are linked to people who eventually lead them to commit other more serious crimes.
What would be the possible solutions in the short and medium term?
Social reintegration should be a priority issue on the National Public Security agenda.
It should be invested in a renewal of the prison system so that there can be greater control and so that a work of comprehensive reintegration.
Institutions and powers must be summoned, mainly the judicial so that they understand that the problem of crime and prisons is not only the responsibility of the penitentiary authority, it is a problem that has been generated by the corruption of the judges and prosecutors, and by the poor preparation of the police at all levels.
The State must understand that Human Rights is not only a discourse but something that must exist within its public policies.
