Marianela Jarroud: No Hope in Sight for Latin America's Prison Crisis Marianela Jarroud - Inter Press Service
go to original February 6, 2015

Overcrowded Prisons Force Inmates to Live in Filth (CCTV Americas Now)

In Latin America’s prisons, notorious for extreme overcrowding and violence, inmates live in constant danger of being killed – a contradiction in a region where virtually every country has abolished the death penalty.

“In many Latin American countries, a prison sentence can become a death sentence in practice,” said Amerigo Incalcaterra, regional representative for South America of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The abolition of capital punishment has a long tradition in this region. Venezuela was the first country in the world to do away with the death penalty, in 1863, and Costa Rica was the third country to do so, in 1882. Only two countries in the region still have the death penalty on their books: Cuba and Guatemala, where the last recorded executions were carried out in 2003 and 2000, respectively.

But the progress made on that front stands in sharp contrast with the appalling conditions in Latin America’s prisons, where human rights organisations and experts warn that the situation is grave.

High levels of violence, numerous murders and other crimes inside the prison walls, and serious human rights abuses are some of the problems in penitentiaries in the region, they report.

“In Latin America the prison systems face chronic problems which have not been adequately addressed, let alone resolved, by governments,” Incalcaterra said in an interview with IPS.

Read the rest at Inter Press Service

Over Crowded Mexican Prisons (Time/BorderGuards)

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