The following report is an effort to describe the difficult situation faced by the
Venezuelan prison system and to make some proposals. It does not pretend to be a
rigorous study nor does it seek to offer definite solutions of a general nature. A simple
scheme for the review of the problem is presented; it identifies some of the main causes
and allows to formulate concrete propositions for each of them. However, the
propositions being made must be subjected to more thorough and rigorous review
before they are taken as real solutions to the problem.
n the 1994 yearly report by the Ministry of Justice
--the most recent available official publication-- Minister Creixems incorporated an
introductory paragraph summarizing his office's impotence in dealing with the prison
system's problems. After he acknowledged that it is indispensable that prisons "do not
turn into human beings warehouses, but rather into centers for rehabilitation and social
reinsertion for those who have committed crimes", the Minister ends by recognizing that
the efforts made by his ministry and the resources invested in the system have not been
sufficient to solve "problems that have accrued for years: heaping of inmates, lack of
adequate facilities and total absence of maintenance. among them".
To this date, Venezuela has 31 penitentiary facilities, with an estimated capacity
of 15,500 inmates and with a real population of some 25,000. The Catia jail,
overcrowded in about 185% and with a percentage of effectively convicted inmates that,
during the 1991-1993 period, never were more than 1.2% of the overall inmate
population, is one of the worst. In this facility and in the rest of the penal institutions
forming our jail system, mattresses are a luxury item that must be purchased in in-house
markets; toilets and showers are broken down and in some pavilions one may find up
to three dozen prisoners sharing a single cell. On a general basis, in 1993,
approximately 196 inmates died as a consequence of jail violence --this is close to 1%
of prison population. Members of the New York Human Rights Watch have stated that
our system "is one of the worst prison systems in all Latin America, and on e of the
worst cases of human rights violations--" shortly after their recent visit to
Venezuela.
All these indicators may help to recognize the size of the Venezuelan prison
system's problem. The shortage of facilities required by the country's delinquency rates
has turned into an accelerated deterioration in the inmate population's living conditions
as a consequence of their heaping. Such absence of infrastructure and the deterioration
of existing facilities are problems that may be attributed to scarce resources. Just to
consider a figure, while in the United States the average daily expense per inmate
reaches $ 92 and in Colombia is more than $ 10, in Venezuela it doe not reach $ 2. To
be more precise, in terms of food expenses per inmate in Venezuela during 1994, the
Ministry of Justice assigned Bs. 65 [$ 0.13] per day, increasing to Bs. 195 [$ 0.41] in 1995
and Bs. 303 [$ 0.65] in 1996.
Additionally, rehabilitation and education programs are practically absent, and
accordingly idleness takes most of the inmate's time. Jails no longer have the objective
of being reorientation and transformation centers for criminals. This situation is in
contrast with the Instituto Nacional de Orientación Femenina (INOF) [National
Institute for Femenine Reorientation], the women's jail located in Los Teques. In this
jail 175 women and 22 children work and study. The inmates have an opportunity to
recover and improve their education with courses going from first to sixth grade,
accounting and clerical workshops. "I do not get depressed, there isn't time for it" says
a Colombian 59 year old prisoner who has served five of her fifteen year term.
Educational programs are complemented with work programs where all the inmates
participate, either with supporting work in the jail, sewing shops, flower arrangements.
etc. for which they are paid a salary. The INOF case reveals that programs of this
nature are feasible and benefit all sides: jails, inmates and society.
For the two past years some measures have been taken trying to solve the
problem, such as the signing of agreements with the governors' offices in order that the
states may be able to take care of the prisons' management within their jurisdiction, the
investment of Bs. 1 billion [$21.5 million] by the Ministry of Justice infrastructure
improvements and the procurement of 15 new buses to transport the inmates to courts,
among other things. The system, however suffers from structural evils that will make
any budget allocation insufficient on a short term. Basically, the problem is centered
on the fact that the rate of incorporation or entry of tried inmates to the jail system
greatly overrides the system's ability to "output", produce or reincorporate individuals
to society. As shown in table 1, approximately 3 of every 10 of the whole prison
population are really serving sentence terms for the last 2 years. One may say that the
remainder of the penal population may be deemed technically innocent.
Situación de la población reclusa
1992/1995
| Año |
TOTAL |
Procesada |
Condenada |
Condenada (%) |
| 1991 |
31086 |
19129 |
11957 |
38.46 (%) |
| 1992 |
28870 |
17297 |
11573 |
40.09 (%) |
| 1993 |
26129 |
16029 |
10100 |
38.65 (%) |
| 1994 |
24352 |
16456 |
7896 |
32.49 (%) |
| 1995 |
25000 |
17000 |
8000 |
32.00 (%) |
Source: Ministry of Justice Annual Report
A sensible part of the problem may be attributed to the system management's
inefficiency. It is responsible both for the legal mechanisms leading to a criminal's
imprisonment and the tools allowing his reinsertion to society.
System Management
The national prison system may be seen as a black box receiving inputs and
generating outputs. The lack of coordination that has been present between both
variables' historic relationship has led to an overstuffed black box. In order to study the
system's evolution a review must be made of its input (congestion) and output
(decongestion) mechanisms.
Congestion factors (input): They contemplate common legal mechanisms leading
to detention and imprisonment of the individual and other factors more recently
incorporated to the Venezuelan legal system that are contributing quite notably to
prison overpopulation.
Those with a larger incidence are:
1. Vagrants and Crooks Law: This law is inserted within the criminal
justice system in what is known as the parallel system. As different from the former, the
latter does not require the occurrence of a crime to proceed to detention, imprisonment
and legal processing; these facts may occur just under the sole requirement of the
degree of "dangerousness" in a concrete person's conduct. This law specifically
empowers the Technical Judiciary Police to make arrests only on the basis of suspicion
or perception of a crime occurrence. Those detained under this procedure may be
imprisoned for up to five years, even if they may have not effectively infringed the law.
This statute has been most seriously questioned as unconstitutional but. as long as the
Supreme Court of Justice does not rule on the issue, it will keep acting as a congesting
element in the prison system.
2. Law on Psychotropic and Narcotic Substances: This law tries to
decriminalize consumption and punish traffic, however it quite widely contemplates the
crime of possession, by considering as such the holding of "any amount" of psychotropic
or narcotic substances. Under this definition there is practically a strong punishment
of use. To get an idea of this law's incidence as a congesting factor in the prison system,
one may point out that, in 1989, the number of arrests on this charge was 8,603, while
in 1993, after the law was enacted and became in force, this figure increased to 15,970,
an 85.6% more. Although there is no sufficient information allowing to assert that most
of these detainees are persons having been caught with small amounts of drug, it is
striking that it is precisely after the law went in force when the figures grew so much.
It would be convenient, however, if more information could be obtained on the
issue.
3. Courts: Criminal procedure may be split into two stages: the
inquisitorial phase (by the police and courts) and the trial phase (by courts). As to the
first phase [at the police level] it was not possible to obtain sufficient information as to
evidence the existence of problems. It is at the court phase where the most serious
hurdles in the way of the system's proper operation have been found.
A recent work by a group from the Simón Bolívar University reports a deep
infrastructure deficit within the courts' sector. Facilities with just the basic equipment
consisting of typewriters and file cabinets and where sometimes the writing paper is
brought by the employees. Under these conditions, no wonder that there are so many
delays and disorders in criminal proceedings, to the point of producing losses of entire
records leading to forgotten prisoners, inmates who remain in prison indefinitely,
without being sentenced because the system does not know about them..
An other element related to this issue and that draws attention is the reduction
in the number of courts per inhabitant, which is in contrast with the number of lawyers
(table 2).
Tribunales vs Abogados
|
1981 |
1990 |
1995 |
| Num de tribunales / 10^5hab |
6.48 |
5.23 |
5.97 |
| Abogados / 10^5hab |
110.5 |
158.9 |
228.9 |
Source: Políticas Judiciales en Venezuela, Pérez Perdomo, 1995.
Using the variation in the number of lawyers as a measure of the larger number
of persons who may bring claims in their names or in that of others, and adding to this
the fact that in Colombia there is a judge for each 6,250 inhabitants, in Costa Rica one
for each 8,104 inhabitants and in Venezuela one for each 19.120 inhabitants, one may
conclude that there is a congestion problem.
Another factor delaying processes is the failure by the judges to comply with the
terms. Notwithstanding the fact that this is a generalized opinion, it was not possible
to get statistical figures to review this issue. Although it is a variable that was provided
by the Council of the Judiciary to evaluate judges, these data are not being kept since
1969 and that is an additional proof of the system's deterioration.
4. Public Defenders: Although this aspect is related to the former
point, its incidence forces a separate consideration. A high percentage of the prisoner
population comes from social levels with low purchasing power and, for such reason
they are bound to use public defenders. These get a fixed salary without any kind of
bonus for successfully solved cases. Additionally, they are overburdened with work.
While a criminal lawyer thinks he is too busy when he has to work on 20 or 30 cases,
public defenders are assigned 179 cases as an average. On another hand, there is no
hiring and selection process for this kind of staff and this causes low prestige within the
sector. This figure notwithstanding, the office of public defender, within justice
administration, is associated to a relaxed job, with little movement, where judges with
heart conditions caused by stress or other minor health problems and who require less
tiring work, are being sent.
For Rogelio Pérez Perdomo, who has spent a great deal of his life studying the
judicial system in Latin America, there is the perception of guilt of the prisoner who
does not have private counsel and that, accordingly there is very little to be done in his
favor by the public defender.
These elements do generate lack of motivation in public defenders and this is
reflected in the bad quality of their work. A figure reinforcing this view is the
percentage of cases with closing arguments by public and private defenders. Whilst
100% of the cases with private counsel have elaborated closing statements, in cases with
public defenders there is only 12.3% of them with a closing statement.
5. Corruption in jails: No court may render sentence without the
defendant being present. In Venezuela, the transportation of prisoners to the courts
has become a most appealing element for corruption. Not surprisingly, one of the best
quoted services in the prison system's black markets is the transportation to courts.
6. Decongesting Factors: This reefers to desired mechanisms to try
and free defendants. On top of the traditional mechanisms of criminal prosecution,
sentence and term service, others have been designed to decongest jails more
expeditiously.
For example, in 1982 a bill was introduced to amend the Law of Committal for
Trial, where the possibility of posting bonds is provided, and that for certain crimes the
defendant need not be detained until sentence is passed. There are the so called special
measures: conditional suspension of punishment, open establishment, submission to
watch by the authorities, freedom on bail. However, in 1981 the percentage of really
convicted inmates was approximately 23%; the current figure of 32% does not appear
to be a sign of much improvement.
Some proposals
As it has been seen, the solution to the problem requires varied and most
complex aspects. It is however possible to present some proposals to improve the
system's ability to reincorporate individuals to society.
In this sense, it is worth pointing out that although the number of prisoners has
diminished during the recent years, the percentage of crimes has increased. The goal
aimed at when the approach to the problem was brought in was to increase the system's
rates of processing or "releases" . These releases, however, must be for reformed
individuals not relapsing as criminals and thus not implying a danger to society. It is
then important to recover the jails' objective, that of being reeducating centers.
Following the INOF experience, prisons may become a source of manpower for
some industries and inmates could earn a salary for their work, part of which would be
administered by the prison. Additionally, the provision of educational courses should
be a priority within the system. In short, the prisoner must invest his time in productive
activities, allowing him to acquire skills in order that he may subsequently reenter
society.
With regard to the congesting factor of public defenders, universities could well
require their law students to enroll in a course where they could be assigned low income
inmates' legal processes. The students would draft the closing statements to be signed
by the course's professor in order to validate them. In order to ensure the quality of
these closing statements, they should be used as evaluating material for the students.
Some of these activities are already being developed in the Central University of
Venezuela's Law School within the "Legal Clinics" course.
Another possible way out for the system's congestion is the establishment of a
minimum public service period for those graduating from public law schools at a
national level. This systems seeks to have the graduate pay back through his
professional service the expenses incurred by the State to provide him with adequate
education. This period would be the equivalent of the "Rural Period" currently
contemplated in public universities for the medical profession. It would be necessary,
however, to design an incentives scheme promoting efficiency within legal work; if such
were not the case, the novice judges would be overrun by the lack of motivation and
indolence now being suffered by the country's entire legal defense system. In a parallel
course with this reform there should be a national prisoners' census in order to know
their courts cases' current status.
In view of the fact that a large number of the Venezuelan jails' inmates are illegal
aliens, it would be convenient to contemplate the signing of agreements with their
countries of origin for the repatriation of Venezuelan prisoners abroad and for the
extradition of foreign prisoners to their countries. It must be made clear, however that
the extradition and exchange of prisoners applies only to convicted inmates. Under the
principles ruling certain agreements that have already been signed between the Ministry
of Justice and its counterparts in other countries (Spain, for instance), there are
covenants for the prisoner's trying and sentencing in the country where the crime was
committed and send to send him to his country of origin to serve the sentence term in
accordance with the provisions of the country of origin's criminal legislation.
Unfortunately, at the time of drafting this report it was not possible to establish the
figures of the alien prisoner population in Venezuela.
Another element has contributed to the prison system's inner disorder, it is the
lack of an agency being in charge of prison supervision. Currently, this responsibility
is not clearly assigned. Some of these duties are assigned to the Ministry of Justice, but
other agencies are competent also such as the Council of the Judiciary and the Ministry
of Internal Relations. In this sense, the system's decentralization, giving power to the
states, would be a solution to the problem. The basic principle is that nothing that may
be managed at a regional level should be controlled by federal government.
Decentralization reduces the area of control and allows for a better approach between
decision levels and communities, thus making possible a greater correspondence
between the prisons' features an the area's required characteristics.
In order to proceed to decentralization, the governors' offices, municipalities and
central government, assisted by multilateral agencies, should intervene and identify each
of the existing centers' needs. Investment must be made of the necessary resources to
rehabilitate them and to build new penitentiary centers in federal entities lacking them.
Central government must transfer competence related regarding the penal institutions'
management and the required resources to the governors' offices. If this were done a
concrete link would be created between the situation of each of the establishments and
the local government's management.
There is a final recommendation: the convenience of establishing internal
subdivisions in each of the country's penitentiary centers should be reviewed in order
to separate convicted inmates from those still being tried, and within the former a
splitting in accordance with the seriousness of the crime committed. This simple
suggestion could bring, on a short time basis, some improvement of the human rights'
situation within the prisons. Additionally, it is suggested that new studies be made to
analyze the mechanisms allowing to overcome the problem of the violation of human
rights currently affecting our prisons.
Edicto Ortega þ50 years oldþ does not recall sharply how many persons he has
killed. but he affirms that he lost trace of them since he went to jail.
In a late Sunday evening, Warner Plaza was talking with his mother when she
went to visit him at the Catia Jail. To her horror, another prisoner stabbed her 27 year
old son, killing him.
Some two weeks ago, gun shots between the Catia Jail's North Tower and South
Towers were spread in the midst of the birthday party of one of the inmates' children,
resulting in many wounded persons.
Rafael Pérez, who is 81 years old, has just been acquitted of murder charges
after having been in jail for more than thirty years.
There are 25,500 individuals in our prison system who suffer these evils on a
daily basis. They are waiting for a team of prepared and able people daring to fully and
ingeniously accept the challenge of the system's management. In 1997, 1% will not be
able to wait any more.
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