From providing security to new inmates to extorting those who have debts for drug use.
Weeks ago three inmates jumped several walls from a pavilion and came to the street outside the Penitentiary to collect an arsenal. When they returned with the weapons, they were detected by uniformed men who were guarding the sector and they were taken to the Prosecutor’s Office for processing.
In this episode, which occurred before the last massacre, it was visible that the security that exists in the most populated prison in the country has flaws and it suggested that certain inmates control spaces.
Relatives of several inmates and some lawyers who regularly do paperwork there say that this prison functions as a kind of headquarters for the mafias. Where the gangs rule and define their borders. They have domino in pavilions.
Secretary of the IACHR talks about the abandonment of the penitentiary system and social rehabilitation in Ecuador before the Security Commission of the National Assembly
“They (the leaders) prefer to be imprisoned because they have greater security and a protection ring. In addition, only by extorting those who arrive (new people deprived of liberty) do they get a fortune. Not to mention that from their pavilions they order the exit of drugs and murders for which they charge, “said a lawyer.
Before the November massacre, in which 65 inmates died and 44 were wounded, it was known that the twelve pavilions were divided into gangs, some of which maintain links with international drug trafficking cartels.
The lawyer consulted indicated that this year, with the current massacres, many people have begun to carry out the process to try to obtain pre-release or to take steps for fear that their family member will be killed. So far this year, 327 violent deaths have been reported in prisons, the highest number in the last decade.
“I started a procedure in April and they still tell me that the folder is not there. What happens is that this family does not have resources and does not have to bribe. But two weeks ago the family of another client paid about $ 2,000 and in less than a week the folder was already going to Quito. This is how this works, ”said one defender.
To enter a weapon in jail, large sums are paid and for inserting a cell phone, at least $ 500 must be paid, according to relatives of inmates.
The wife of an inmate indicated that she was extorted several times. “The prisoner arrives and one of them asks him between $ 500 and $ 1,000 to give them a place to sleep. If he doesn’t have money, they send him out there to roll, to hold a stick, to wash the bodyguard’s clothes or to wash the bathrooms, ”says the woman who on Thursday submitted a request to move her husband to another space, as he has tuberculosis and ensures that the Penitentiary has not been treated.
The families say that even the water that the prisoners drink is owed to the gangs.
Those close to the inmates refer that up to $ 2,000 were paid to choose a flag, so that a prisoner is not entered into a sector where an enemy gang is, where they could be killed.
Ramiro García, deputy dean of the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the Central University of Ecuador and president of the Pichincha Bar Association, considered that prisons are a very profitable business. He said that the stores are the most expensive supermarket chain in the country and that each product easily costs twice its price abroad.
“For a bucket of eggs you pay up to three or four times its price outside,” commented the lawyer who explains that in prisons those who regulate the price of the products are usually the inmates.
“It is at the discretion of the boss, they are the ones who decide how much they are going to take,” García said.
The activist Nelsa Curbelo, who weeks ago participated in a meeting in the Interior and addressed the issue from her column in this newspaper, considered the military presence in prisons important to control this and indicated that the Police have already shown that they cannot face it alone. to drug trafficking mafias. They are more than 8,000 men better armed than the Police.
Although the Government ordered that the military can help in the control, specialists say that it will take time to change what happens in the Penitentiary, since it is a system that moves like a business structure. A system in which the gangs want to have power and do not seem to give up what they have obtained.
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The governor of Guayas, Pablo Arosemena, said that the current crisis comes from the inaction of previous governments. He pointed out that in a few months the Penitentiary will have a cargo scanner for the first time that will allow it to control the entry of prohibited objects.
Curbelo estimated that violent prisoners and gang leaders should be separated immediately. Make a technical profile of each prisoner and plan their rehabilitation where work and study are included.
The specialists refer that for a true rehabilitation plan, resources and programs are needed so that the inmates work, for example, in the field, receive a salary that covers their prison expenses and a percentage is automatically saved in savings, to release it when they leave and they can have a capital to reinsert themselves. (I)
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
