The Ministers of the Interior and Penitentiary Service agreed on the need to stop and relaunch the Venezuelan prison system. “What has been done is not right,” said the Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace, Remigio Ceballos Ichaso, when he established the first diploma course for guards at the Special Action Forces Training Center, located in El Junquito, Caracas.
“It is about transforming the penitentiary system not to punish but to rehabilitate and to bring about the new man,” said Ceballos, while making a self-criticism of the penitentiary policies due to the fact that the internal regime based on discipline, work and study has been relaxed, according to the monitoring carried out by his office.
The Minister told the guards that they must be aware that they are working in a Venezuela that is in the midst of a war. “If we are at war, we must prepare for war,” said the Minister of the Interior, who asked what the scheme of action was for the ongoing battle.
“What is the fight? Dignifying the penitentiary system, transforming the penitentiary system,” the Minister reflected. “The issue is not only the protection of prisoners in penitentiary centers, but also the logistics, medical issues, transportation, work and ensuring that there are no procedural delays,” the official explained.
Ceballos admitted that there is a delay in the criminal proceedings against the approximately 50 thousand prisoners in the country. “Around 12 thousand prisoners could be released because they have delays,” said the Vice President of Citizen Security, who also warned that political sectors “want to take power by force and for this they want to use prisons.”
In turn, the Minister for Penitentiary Services, Julio García Zerpa, explained that the work of a custodian is “of national security, of state security.” Zerpa revealed that when he was appointed as head of the penitentiary portfolio, President Nicolás Maduro assigned him the task of “fine-tuning, cleaning, purifying, tidying up and re-institutionalizing this Ministry.”
In this regard, he revealed that since his arrival at the Ministry he had detected 50 negative leaders (pranes) who, in addition to charging for services to prisoners in various prisons, were recruited for a plan aimed at generating violence with far-right groups.
“We are going to work here, and we are going to work well and order will be established, because the chaos will end; enough is enough,” said the Minister, who said that prison directors “cannot be just another appendage of crime. We are going to get serious.”
Those above. “I am not going to be complacent with people who do not want to do their job properly,” said Minister García Zerpa before the 197 guards who began an intensive course on prisons on Wednesday and who he called on to beware of corruption. He said that it pains him greatly to apply the law against officials “from above” who are involved in crimes. “That started and it was not my decision and it started and if it started from above, surely that will start to decrease,” he added.
Recently Latest News had access to a report detailing the arrest of 10 officials from the Ministry for Penitentiary Services allegedly involved in plans designed by the opposition to activate prisoners in various protests. It was later revealed that the detainees are also linked to acts of corruption.
The group of those under investigation includes Vice Minister Kevin Ávila, who is being held by the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM). The list of those under investigation also includes the Director General of Security and Custody and the Director General of Penitentiary Establishments.
