Only 17% of the detainees in Ecuador participate in an educational program, a rehabilitation axis and a requirement for the early fulfillment of the sentence

In addition to the greater overcrowding and lack of classification of the inmates of Ecuador’s prisons, according to their procedural situation, type of crime committed and level of danger, another problem detected is the lack of access to education, which is one of the six axes of treatment for social rehabilitation and with whose compliance the inmate can request prison benefits, such as, for example, avail himself of a semi-open regime when he has served 60% of the sentence.

This would help reduce the excess of people who are currently deprived of liberty, but only about 6,900 prisoners currently attend four levels of educational programs within the country’s prisons, that is, 17.8% of the entire prison population.

The remaining 82.2% of the detainees do not have access to education, according to the latest statistics from the Technical Rehabilitation Agency.

The participation of inmates in the rehabilitation axes has been affected by the pandemic that broke out in 2020 and by the massacres of this 2021. As a reference, in 2019 there were more than 80,000 inmates involved in the axes of education, labor, sports, health, culture and social bonding. Now, only almost 7,000 are enrolled in the development of these activities, in which those who have already taken advantage of the regime changes also participate.

The Kaleidos Interdisciplinary Ethnography Center, which made a diagnosis of what happens in prisons and which was taken as input by the parliamentary commission that addresses the prison crisis in Ecuador, warns that where there are more inmates “there is less application of the axes of treatment in educational, sports, work and cultural activities ”.

This is stated in the report of the Sovereignty, Integration and Integral Security Commission, whose members visited the Guayaquil prison complex on October 4.

In the Litoral Penitentiary, which is part of this complex and in whose pavilions there are 8,542 prisoners, only 668 attend the school year.

The Ministry of Education, in charge of this axis, had to increase the number of prisoners in literacy, schooling and high school courses until December of this year, says a report from the Technical Rehabilitation Agency; but that has not been fulfilled in the “Peni”.

In fact, despite the investment of $ 3.5 million in four educational levels, this year the programs have only reached 30 of the 37 prisons that exist in Ecuador.

In prisons with a lower incidence of violence and levels of overcrowding, programs and events are developed in accordance with the rehabilitation axes, according to the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI).

Daniel Pineda, an expert in penitentiary issues, argues that “the need to appear before the judge of penitentiary guarantees delays the process to obtain penitentiary benefits”, and to solve this he suggests “developing an automatic system for calculating the percentage of penalties, so that the Judges can receive notifications, because apparently they lack an agenda to know when this benefit of the law should be applied, when it is an obligation of the State to know it, and it does not.

He believes that a legal reform is required that includes a penalty reduction for merits of up to 50%. “You have to create a system of rewards, of counting, so that people make an effort and are motivated to comply; that they be encouraged to enter the educational axis to pursue a career, to enter the labor axis, the sports axis, because today the only requirement to request 60% of the penalty are those documents. You have to give them the opportunity to rehabilitate and develop ”.

But the war between gangs has affected the education of the inmates, admit the authorities of the prison system.

The guides maintain that in the Penitentiary the mafias threaten the inmates to prevent them from being educated, and thus they cannot avail themselves of benefits to leave rehabilitated and with anticipation. “The thing is, if they go out, they lose their army and their victims, because there are many prisoners who are forced to commit crimes against others,” says the mother of an inmate, who must pay $ 25 each month so that her son is not abused. . “Besides, they are forced to buy things they don’t even need and at a premium,” he complains.

Also, there are inmates who simply do not show interest in the educational axis, because they prefer to participate in that “criminal economy” that involves selling drugs, introducing prohibited objects or extorting money from their colleagues.

And those who do want to study must overcome, in addition to the threats from their colleagues, the difficulties generated by each massacre that has occurred this year. For example, according to the legislative report on the prison crisis, the infrastructure of educational spaces has been destroyed by the crossing of bullets and explosives.

Faced with the rioting alerts and after they happen, the teachers have not been able to enter the large prisons, such as the one in Guayaquil. Thus, the current school year has been very irregular for the few who have decided to study here.

The Litoral Penitentiary could not be visited this week by the members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), within their schedule of visits to other prisons. The entity talks about the abandonment of the penitentiary and social rehabilitation system in Ecuador.

The situation has been different in the prisons of the Sierra. For example, in the Latacunga jail the teachers have been able to enter to teach, despite the problems, which have been minor compared to the events in Guayaquil.

In the Cotopaxi prison, “it was reported that public defenders do not enter out of fear. The teachers, however, have not stopped attending ”, indicates part of the parliamentary report, which suggests increasing the number of educators and urges the Executive to adopt urgent measures.

The numbers of graduates in jail reflect that gap between these two regions. According to data from the Ministry of Education, in the 2020-2021 school year, 236 detainees were titled in the Sierra compared to only 82 in the Coast.

The Ministry of Education, meanwhile, maintains that “the continuity of the educational system is guaranteed despite all the inconveniences” and ensures that “an intervention plan has been designed to strengthen the baccalaureate”, but that will be for the next school year. (I)