54% of prisoners are detained for drugs

Ecuadornews:

The largest female prison population in Ecuador is in the Mixed Social Rehabilitation Center of Guayaquil (31%), followed by Latacunga (28%) and Cuenca (6%). Many of them devote their time to study and learn various crafts such as chocolate and hairdressing. In addition to freedom, they want to start businesses to generate income and thus support their families and employ other detainees. Experts and inmates ask to create more offers of workshops.

Of the 3,016 women prisoners that currently exist in Ecuador, 2,859 are distributed in Centers of Deprivation of Liberty (CPL), most of them in three provinces  purging sentence or facing a Judicial process. Of the general total, 54.17% (1,634) have been sanctioned for crimes related to micro-trafficking of alkaloids, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice.

The sale of drugs has led 1,600 women to be sanctioned on the basis of the Organic Comprehensive Criminal Code, 29 by the Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances Act (replaced in 2015 by the Law on the Prevention of the Socio-Economic Phenomenon of Drugs and Regulation and Control of the Use of Substances Subject to Inspection) and five by the previous Penal Code.

This criminal phenomenon committed by women and for which they are imprisoned in the country’s prisons is followed by crimes related to theft (357), murder (100), fraud (73), robbery (39), homicide (24), rape (13), among others. There are also cases of women prosecuted for acts of corruption (37), the embezzlement being the offense that has incurred the largest number of them: 33 people deprived of their liberty (PPL).

Where are the majority of women prisoners and what do they ask for? According to the Ministry of Justice, of the total number of women registered until December 2018, 31.82% are in the Social Rehabilitation Center (CRS) Mixto in Guayaquil, 28.36% in Latacunga (Cotopaxi), 6.36% % in El Turi (Cuenca) and the rest is distributed in 26 more prisons in the country.

In Quito there is the CRS Feminine of Priority Attention, where there are pregnant women in judicial process and with sentence, as well as those who have children under four years of age or who have obtained pre-release. As of January 11, there were 61 women in this CRS. Although in the afternoon four inmates were transferred to the CPL of Latacunga.

In an interview with the Public Media, which were allowed to enter a journalistic team, women stressed that they need to expand courses and workshops to learn trades and start businesses upon their release from prison. They also requested to increase the sale of their products to have savings once free and help their families.

The need has led 38 women (more than half of the people of the place) to continue their studies. Next April, the PCEI Fiscomisional Unit and the tutorial support center Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel will graduate three new high school graduates.

One of them is Teresa A., who at 27 years old will get her coveted title, but has also stood out as the leader of the Student Council and CRS standard-bearer. She indicated that her goal, after serving her sentence of one year in prison, will be to continue with university studies. For Teresa, being prey does not prevent her from working, because she stressed that she needs some money “to help our relatives who have stayed outside with our children”.

The lack of public policies in favor of the poorest population in Colombia, led Gladys E. to   migrate to Ecuador. Her son had been diagnosed with cancer, the result of a knee tumor, and she did not have the resources to buy medications. She got a job in the Ecuadorian Amazon in which she earned $ 12 a day, but it was insufficient to buy the medicines, so she started to be an intermediary in drug trafficking and earned $ 40 per transaction.

In the end, her son died of cancer, another is in Colombia and she is serving a sentence along with her nine-month-old daughter. In jail she learned to create designs with chocolates and although she has 10 months left to fulfill 60% of the sentence, it will be that branch of the business that she will undertake. Although she also requested that they take into account situations like her for the delivery of pardons, “we are people who are for the first time and we made a mistake out of necessity”.

The PPL Lina S. also learned how to make designs in chocolate. She asked that the State allocate a larger budget for teaching projects of different trades. Paola S. agreed with this, who when seeing that other cell mates after leaving have started business from what she learned in jail, she valued the education provided, but she requested that the State help with loans to start businesses.

More public policies and less criminalization are lacking “The trades (learned) open other perspectives of life to the inmates”, was the phrase with which Elsie Monge, director of the Ecumenical Human Rights Commission (CEDHU), reflected the need to encourage education not only in prisons but in vulnerable neighborhoods with high crime and low income residents.

For Monge, social rehabilitation has its basis in teaching prisoners other forms of subsistence. The workshops and courses, then would allow that at the start of business and not return to incur crimes. “It seems to me that this must be a state policy. The rehabilitation is to prepare them to reincorporate them into society and give them tools and a trade so they can exercise it, “she remarked.

According to studies and what experts say, a large part of the prison population comes from poor families with unmet needs and poor education, and this is also reflected in the women’s PPL.

 For Lorena Aguirre, social worker and professor, those who commit crimes are, generally, single mothers without employment opportunities. She explained that the majority has been tried for crimes of sale of drugs, but they do not belong to large bands of traffickers, “they are part of the micro-trafficking, they are ‘mules'”.

Lisset Coba, a professor and expert on women’s issues, subjectivities and the judicial system, said that since the 1980s and 1990s, the criminalization of women for drug trafficking crimes has become more acute.

She believes that “they are heirs of historical spoils, that is why we have migrant, black, poor mestizo women”. She noted that her reintegration into society is the responsibility of the State, which should help with housing plans and work.

“It is important that these women have access to a job, but decent work, women in prison are vulnerable to being exploited,” she added, adding that only with adequate public policies would new prisoners be given new opportunities is preparing to carry out reforms to the COIP, but despite the fact that there is a significant number of dams (3,016), legislators consulted by the Public Media indicated that it is not contemplated to deal with this issue, analysts believe that the excuse for not addressing this problem is that they believe that the percentage of inmates (8%) is low with respect to the total of PPL, (38,559). (I)

Source: https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/judicial/12/54-ciento-presas-detenidas-drogas