Almost 50% of the budget of prisons in Ecuador is allocated to feeding the inmates

Feeding the prisoners is the largest expenditure in the penitentiary budget paid by the Ecuadorian State, whose budgeted amount in 2021 amounts to $ 41 million. This, as in 2020, represents about 50% of the annual resources of the prison system, according to the Public Expenditure Observatory of the Citizenship and Development Foundation.

And despite the fact that in theory each inmate should receive his daily food (breakfast, lunch and snack), the complaints of relatives who “have paid (outside the law)” to be admitted “secretly” or “in front of them ( with the endorsement of prison staff) ”food for their persons deprived of their liberty has multiplied throughout these months, and more after the violent events registered in the country’s prisons in the last two years.

“In 2020, out of a budget of $ 89 million for current spending, $ 40.2 million was used to pay for food services. Another $ 2.6 million were allocated to investment expenses, but only 25% of this item was executed; that is, only $ 664,742 was used ″, exposes part of the report of this Observatory, which specifies that the Ecuadorian State spends $ 3 a day on feeding each inmate.

In 2020, the $ 40’257,403 of the penitentiary budget was, in theory, for feeding 38,967 people who were in prisons, including the population of adolescent offenders.

“This is equivalent to an annual expenditure of $ 1,033 for each one, in food,” says the report from the Public Expenditure Observatory, published last month.

As of October 27, 2021, and before the last massacre in the Litoral Penitentiary (in Guayaquil), the prison population in Ecuador was 38,634 deprived of liberty, according to the available statistics and the most up-to-date that the National Attention Service has. Integral to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI), an entity that was created in November 2018 (in the mandate of Lenín Moreno) to administer the prison system, instead of the then Ministry of Justice.

But feeding the inmates is not the only item in the fixed expenses that the country’s prison system has, which is currently in a state of exception due to the crisis in the prisons and the violence that has triggered several massacres inside the prisons. in a state of exception and that has claimed the lives of more than 300 inmates between 2020 and 2021. The last massacre was that of November 12 last in the Litoral Penitentiary, which left more than 65 dead and 25 injured.

Another of the fixed expenses is the transfer or rotation of the prisoners. Each one represents the disbursement of $ 100.26 by the State, according to the Public Expenditure Observatory.

For activists and experts in this branch, in the prisons a change of model is urgently needed that opts for reintegration, to seek activities that are productive for the inmate and that even help pay the costs of daily maintenance that each inmate represents. to the State, more so now when the numbers of inmates have increased compared to the previous decade.

Thus, in 2009 there were 11,517 inmates in Ecuador, but they increased to 39,559 in 2019, according to the statistics that the then Ministry of Justice had.

And although at the time it was said that ways were being sought to end corruption inside prisons on issues such as food, it did not end despite the fact that the State hired, and continues to do so, food services, which now they are in the hands of a single company for all the prisons in the country.

Relatives of the inmates say that the food provided by the State is not enough and that the corruption has not ended.

They mention that before the last massacre in the Litoral Penitentiary, the prices for the entrance of meals, such as snacks, roast chickens, rice dishes with stew and meat, drinks and others (such as cigarettes), ranged from $ 20 to more than $ 100, as well as those for “other services” such as the entry of medicines, cell phones, weapons. .. The value goes up depending on the product.

Thus, the entry of a grilled or roasted chicken, for example, could cost between $ 40 and $ 80, depending on who was charging. The charges on many occasions were made by the inmates themselves, according to relatives. And in order not to move so much money, they used to ask for deposits to certain accounts.

For Billy Navarrete, of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDH), there are two vital considerations on this issue.

The first is that “it is very lucrative to have people in prison, thinking about the entire level of public spending that requires maintaining and guaranteeing the minimum conditions so that this population, which is considered a priority care group, remains, among these, for For example, the supply of food … ”, explains the activist.

He adds another important point or factor that is talked about outside the prisons and also inside them.

“The greatest burden of keeping this population in the custody of the State is borne by the families and relatives of that prison population. It is estimated that more than $ 500 a month minimum are paid by the families of people in prison as part of the extortion mechanism of this parallel power that now controls the prisons and that is not that of the State ”.

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

He says that the extortion mechanisms are now sophisticated (such as the bank deposits referred to by relatives of inmates) and that this economic movement also makes it striking that a high prison population is maintained.

Leonardo Gómez, coordinator of the Public Expenditure Observatory, who made the report of the $ 3 a day that the State allocated to the food of each inmate in 2020, says that the authorities have not yet given them specific details of the amount invested in food and other items.

He comments that it is unknown how these funds have been invested. For example, what is the daily menu, prices, among others, that the authorities have not yet made public.

For Navarrete, it is also important to know where the public funds destined for the prison population go, since the level of corruption is open and the destination of these funds is not controlled by the State and if they were actually invested in each deprived of liberty.

There were plans to invest in rehabilitation, but its execution was yet to be finalized

Leonardo Gómez, from the Public Expenditure Observatory, points out that prison reform or improvements in rehabilitation issues is an issue that has dragged on from previous years, since projects are presented but these are not fulfilled or only a limited or minimal one is executed. part, despite the fact that there is the money budgeted for that.

Remember that in 2019, for example, the implementation of a plan was announced with an estimated investment of $ 38.3 million, but that as of August 2021, 4% of the project had been executed.

In the Guayaquil prison complex there is one guide for every 193 prisoners, far from the UN international standard of 1/10

That project was in charge of SNAI, but there were budget cuts. As of May 2021, only two women’s pavilions were ready, in Napo and Carchi, and a perimeter wall in the Imbabura prison, in addition to the purchase of 1,500 sweaters for guides and portable digital communication radios. The entity said that more than $ 38 million was not delivered, according to the Observatory.

And this just to talk about plans to serve infrastructure, technology and human talent.

Gómez says that all possible and available budget can be assigned to prisons, but that this is useless if it is not used well.

“There was the project, there was the funds, but with a very low budget execution, barely 4% of the project, how then can we pretend that the prison system is fine,” says Gómez. (I)