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The director of the Villavicencio prison, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, assured that it is not possible to guarantee isolation in the prison if there are people sleeping under the beds and in the bathrooms.
Rodríguez added that adequate medical care for inmates cannot be guaranteed either if doctors resign because they are not given biosecurity equipment.
Those are just two of the many reasons that Rodríguez explained in a virtual debate before the Meta Assembly, arguing that the number of coronavirus cases in the detention center had skyrocketed. At the moment, there are 859 infected, among inmates, guardians and administrative personnel.
From his office in the detention center, Rodríguez pointed out that the main problem is the overcrowding inside the detention center and the lack of actions by the authorities. from different levels to solve it, among others by the “state abandonment of the reclusion center and bureaucracy ”.
(You may be interested: The hell that the inmates of the Villavicencio prison live)
“Work tables are held, security councils, in which many ideas are given, many minutes are signed, but there are no results, the bureaucracy is eating away at us and inside the prison we do what we can,” he said.
The prison has a capacity for 900 inmates, at the start of the emergency 1,835 people were being held, that is, there was an overcrowding of 100.3 percent.
Despite the fact that more income and transfers have not been allowed and other people have been released, in the prison there are still 1,750 inmates, which means that overcrowding continues, now 94.4 percent.
“How can I guarantee insulation if people are sleeping under beds and in bathrooms?”Rodríguez wondered. To which he added that it is a health issue that had not been handled in any prison in the world.
To the prison overcrowding were added the mutinies of the inmates that began on March 22 when they knocked down bars, doors and walls. “Four of the leaders were transferred to the Picaleña prison, at our request because if they continued here, the disorders continued,” Rodríguez said.
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To repair the damage, the guards made a collection with which they bought bars and rebuilt the walls. “That task is not our responsibility or that of custody and security personnel, but if we wait for the Penitentiary and Prison Services Unit (Uspec) to do it, we are waiting, ”he said.
Rodríguez added that on March 30, “when we were going to put the inmates of the Colombia patio under safe guard, we were knocked down again with weights to exercise,” he said. So they had to make new transfers by people who were a problem, they were negative leaders, he added.
Isolation
“We have isolation sites that are not ideal.” The place where the women’s prison was located was prepared for those with mild illness and they are preparing the carpentry workshops in the Colombia and Santander courtyards to locate other inmates.
The director of the Uspec, Lissette Cervantes, said in a debate in the House of representatives, eight days ago, that the doctors do not want to work in the Villavicencio prison.
“They have resigned because they have provided us with the necessary protection elements to fulfill their functions, It was not on a whim or fear, what happens is that they cannot go unprotected to war, “he said.
Rodríguez assured that for the medical services of the detention center, “the Uspec makes a contract with the Fiduprevisora and this, in turn, with the municipal ESE, but when it comes to knowing what happened to the staff or medications, one says that it is the other and the other that is the other and, finally, nobody responds ”.
The director of the Uspec had promised to bring three medicalized tents in a security council with the vice-ministers of the Interior, Defense and Justice that took place fifteen days ago in Villavicencio.
They only brought a tent for 20 patients, in which only one person can stay 20 minutes because it is very short and the heat is unbearable during the day.
A guardianship ordered the transfer of 69 inmates over 60 years of age to the El Yari center, an order that could not be fulfilled because that center for juvenile offenders is in charge of Family Welfare, but the newly built property has not yet been delivered by the governance The place has capacity for 84 people and with some adjustments 134 will be able to be taken, which is the total of older adults in the prison, he said.
In the prison there is an overcrowding of 94 percent.
Villavicencio Mayor’s Office
By Decree 546 of prison emergency, 62 people are going to leave to serve their sentences at home.
Rodríguez also said that the Meta governorate and the Villavicencio mayor’s office established protocols for the release of the inmates, by decisions of the judges, which cannot be followed because that is unconstitutional.
“They ask us to keep them isolated, when we cannot have them in prison because freedom is a right that they must fulfill immediately. So as soon as the judge’s order arrives, the background is reviewed, the administrative process is done and the same day they are released. ” The only thing they can do from jail, he assured, is to notify the health authorities who are going to be released.
NELSON ARDILA ARIAS
For the time
VILLAVICENCIO
