Ecuador is looking for to ease overcrowding in its prisons after gang-linked riots killed greater than 300 individuals this yr.
Ecuador’s president has pardoned some prisoners in an effort to ease overcrowding within the nation’s prisons following a string of riots that left greater than 300 individuals lifeless this yr.
In a press release late on Monday, Guillermo Lasso’s press workplace mentioned the president had pardoned prisoners concerned in site visitors offences that didn’t trigger damage or dying, in addition to others affected by critical or terminal sicknesses.
It didn’t specify how many individuals would obtain a pardon.
“This choice contains the full forgiveness of custodial sentences however doesn’t extinguish the duty of complete reparations (to victims) that each one these receiving pardons are liable for,” the assertion mentioned.
Ecuador noticed its deadliest jail riot on file in September, when 119 individuals – all inmates – have been killed at Penitenciaria del Litoral, a facility within the coastal metropolis of Guayaquil, in what authorities mentioned have been clashes between rival gangs linked to drug trafficking.
Earlier this month, another riot happened in the identical jail, killing dozens of inmates.
Specialists have pointed to nationwide jail overcrowding, an absence of rehabilitation programmes for inmates, a scarcity of skilled workers, and insufficient infrastructure contained in the services as a few of the key issues contributing to the violence.
The prisons are tormented by overcrowding of about 30 p.c and poor dwelling situations for the system’s 39,000 inmates.
The pinnacle of the jail authority said in early October that Ecuador deliberate to pardon as many as 2,000 prisoners to ease the strain on the system, with precedence for launch given to aged and feminine prisoners, in addition to these with disabilities and terminal sicknesses.
Ecuador can also be getting ready to ship 170 Colombian prisoners again to their very own nation, following an settlement with the Colombian authorities over the weekend.
Lasso’s authorities additionally has pledged to make use of the armed forces and police to take care of order on the prisons.
However critics query whether or not elevated militarisation will resolve the issue.
“Getting into with violence shouldn’t be the answer. You may’t have a concentrate on militarisation and repression, it’s important to have a concentrate on rehabilitation, in any other case it received’t work,” Ramiro Narvaez, a lawmaker with the Izquierda Democratica (Democratic Left) occasion, advised Al Jazeera this month.
