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A little over two months after the arrival of covid-19 in Colombia, the spread of the virus not only does not stop in the cities, but has extended with great speed to prison centers, where overcrowded conditions become a vehicle for massive contagion.
A month ago the first case of coronavirus was detected in a prison. It happened in the Villavicencio penitentiary. The case was reported the second week of April and it involved an inmate who was released and died a few days after the virus.
(We recommend: Coronavirus outbreak in Leticia prison: 85 cases confirmed)
Since then, 962 cases of covid-19 have already been confirmed in the country’s prisons. Villavicencio concentrates the majority of cases, with 834; Leticia’s prison follows, with 90 cases —89 inmates and an Inpec official.
The situation in Amazonas has aroused great concern in recent days, as the department has already reached 718 infections, ranking among the 10 departments with the most cases in the country. And in the Leticia prison, which has a total of 181 inmates, the 89 cases of coronavirus represent 49% of the prison population.
To the list of coronaviruses in prisons is added the Ibagué prison, where there are 22 Inpec officials and 2 infected inmates. Cases have also been reported in Florence, with 6 officials and 2 positive inmates for covid-19; in La Picota prison, with 5 infected inmates, and in Guaduas prison, which includes one prisoner.
Despite the fact that since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, institutions such as the Office of the Attorney General, the Ombudsman’s Office and civil society organizations warned of the serious risk posed by the virus to a prison system in crisis and with high levels of overcrowding, the measures taken by the State did not prevent infections, despite the fact that visits and the entry of external personnel to prisons were suspended since March.
And the measure that was most strongly requested by different people, an release of those deprived of liberty that would allow the most vulnerable population to be released from prison and reduce overcrowding, came when there were already cases in prisons.
Only on April 16 was a government decree in force that allowed prisoners who met certain characteristics to be sent home by jail for 6 months, after reviewing each case by decision of guarantees and sentence enforcement judges.
89 of the 181 inmates in the Leticia prison have tested positive for coronavirus.
(Also read: At the current rate, the release of 4,000 prisoners would take more than 230 days)
In almost one month of the decree’s validity, Until this Monday, only 408 prisoners had left for a temporary prison, out of a total that the Ministry of Justice estimated at 4,000. deprived of liberty. At this speed of exit, it would take more than 200 days to finish releasing the prisoners that the Justice portfolio calculated.
But not only that, but from the College of Criminal Lawyers and also from Dejusticia have warned that this measure is not only being very slow, but will not serve as a fund to alleviate prison overcrowding, a situation that can promote massive contagion in prisons.
In the country, overcrowding in prisons stands at 43.51% overall – although there are prisons with more than 100% overcrowding – and the overcrowding of the prison system is 35,208 people, according to data from Inpec. Thus the things, releasing 4,000 people would only impact that number, reducing it by 11%.
Added to this is the fact that, as the Constitutional Court has repeatedly said, in the country’s prisons there is no good access to health care and sometimes to basic services such as water, and facing the coronavirus pandemic, most prisoners have access to elements such as soap, disinfectant, antibacterial gels, face masks and gloves to mitigate or prevent infections.
Despite the fact that the Ministry of Justice and different foundations have come together to donate inputs to prisoners from different jails through donations, the efforts are still not enough for these elements to reach each of the 116,136 deprived of the freedom in the country.
In the middle of this panorama, in The Ministry of Justice is working on a new decree of release that makes some of the conditions for obtaining the domiciliary benefit more flexible, since one of the strongest criticisms of the first decree was that it was very exclusive regarding the crimes that could be benefited.
Meanwhile, from different sectors and the country’s prisoners themselves claim Quick actions before the issue goes from having hundreds of infected people in jails to, unfortunately, hundreds of deceased.
JUSTICE
On twitter: @JusticiaET
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