Rodolfo Valentine Santos, director of the National Office of Defense Public (ONDP), an organization that recently released the 2023 report on the state of the prisons of the countrydoes not approve that these premises are under the administration of the Attorney General’s Office General of the Republic (PGR).
According to Valentinethe PGR has a address which tries to make efforts to improve the conditions of these penitentiary centers, but does not have the necessary resources to change their reality.
He believes that it is not appropriate for control to be from the Ministry Public and of the police officers Since only the initial objective of imprisoning people is met, no attention is paid to the management and rehabilitation of prisoners.
About the police officers He stressed that they are not trained for this task, which, instead, should be agents special to be able to treat those deprived of their liberty.
“You can imagine, the Ministry Publicthe prosecution, persecutes, accuses, imprisons and asks for a lot of prison preventive as a measure of coercion and then it is the entity that administers the people they persecute,” he said.
He attributed the excess of prison preventiveas a measure of coercion, to which for the authorities “it is enough to put in prison“to the people because with this their work is already done, but there is no rush for these prisoners to be released, prosecuted and given a trial.
He said that the insecurity citizen and the lack of control social Regarding crimes, they are due to the lack of a project prevention or an operational responsibility plan with which the criminality.
He stated that the country There are about 26,000 prisoners in the country, but robberies, rapes, homicides and murders continue to occur on the streets. “The guilty ones are not those who are in prison. prevention of crime, of offense and of insecurity citizenwe must apply it outside, not inside the prisons“, said.
Nearly 5,000 cases in 2023
The director of Defense Public He reported that in 2023 they managed to conclude some 5,000 cases between discharges, acquittals and dismissals.
“This means that these people did not commit the acts or that the evidence against them was insufficient. This has a message and it is that not all the cases processed by the Ministry Public have weight to be prosecuted or convicted.”
Of the processes carried out by the Defense Public In 2023, it reported that 2,229 cases were dismissed and 2,767 cases were dismissed. Of the latter, 2,669 were for adults in ordinary jurisdiction. The number of adults who received a dismissal totals 2,098.
In addition, there were 98 discharges and 131 no grounds for dismissal in cases involving Children and Adolescents (NNA).
The data provided by the National Office of Defense Public (ONDP) report that more than one hundred thousand people received assistance and that prisons and detachments made 20,294 visits during 2023.
“That is why there are a lot of cases that we win within the system, because of the irresponsibility of the Public Ministry for letting justice take charge and those cases go to the system with flaws, biases”National Public Defense Office
In the first half of this year, 45,581 people have received assistance from the ONDP.
In this regard, he said that one of the main problems of the Ministry Public The problem is that the local prosecutors are not doing their job, because when there is a situation between neighbours, this body cannot get them to come to an agreement because they lack the capacity to arbitrate. This leads to “irresponsible” referral of these cases to the courts, and it is a judge who decides.
“That is why there are a lot of cases that we win within the system, because of that irresponsibility of the Ministry Publicfor letting justice take charge and those cases go to the system with flaws, biases and insufficient evidence and the judge has no choice but to discharge it,” he explained. Valentine Saints.
Further prisons in it country
To your consideration the country you don’t need more prisonsbut rather that programs be implemented prevention regarding crime and criminalityespecially in the younger segment of the population.
He pointed out that creating more penitentiary centers is “visualizing and prophesying” that more crimes and offenses will be committed, “I am one of those who believe that more should be closed.” prisons“.
“When you think about creating more prisons It is thinking that it will increase the insecurity citizen. So I think we should not do more. prisons What we must do is transform the men that we have in prison and reduce the overcrowding within the prisons“.
He specified that before sending to prison A person should be given a study of the around in which it is located since, in the opinion of Valentine Santos, “it is unfortunate to think that the conception of the prison It is revenge for an act or retribution, or like an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
He said that while in the country that concept is held prisons will continue to be “a disaster,” while questioning what the purpose of imposing penalties is.
He explained the theory of the R’s, which are regeneration, re-education, rehabilitation and reintegration socialbut that in the country It is not seen that way, but rather punishment is seen as “revenge” and that is the perception that society as a whole gives it.
Among the recommendations to improve the reintegration of those deprived of liberty, Rodolfo Valentine Santos proposes that the State assume this commitment and provide workshops in all penitentiary centers so that they learn something job and when they leave prison they will be hired by government entities and will not be stigmatized by society for having been incarcerated.
“I believe that many of these people made a mistake in their lives, not because they were criminals, and you can be sure that there is a 100% chance that they will not make a second mistake like that,” said the director of the ONDP.
He added that in the country exists overcrowding for not having addressmanagement, control, administration and a good operational plan are those axes that are needed to prevent this situation from continuing in the prisons.
The National Public Defense Office (ONDP) has a deficit of 250 public defenders, according to its director, which causes the 182 public defenders and 151 contracted attached lawyers to be very burdened since they have to handle between 300 and 400 cases each. “The issue of salary also causes a public defender to go to private practice, what a public defender earns in a month can be earned by any lawyer in three hours or in two hours in a coercive measure hearing there in Ciudad Nueva or in any of those courts,” he said. He explained that the recently published report of the National Public Defense Council on the conditions of detention and prison of RD 2023, where almost five thousand prisoners were detected to be sick and not receiving treatment, showed the “inhumane conditions” in which they serve their sentences.
