Reforma: Ana Laura Magaloni Kerpel*
Translated by Joel Cloke What happened in Topo Chico prison [state prison in Nuevo Leon where a battle, on Thursday, Feb. 11, between two factions of the Zetas cartel for control of the prison resulted in 49 people killed] makes us remember once again the black hole in which our prisons are immersed. It’s clear that public security policies, at all government levels, have completely forgotten about a central aspect thereof: the penitentiary system. Putting aside the problems of prison (violence, abuse, overcrowding, etc.), Mexican penitentiary policy has two major errors in terms of public security policies: firstly, prison is not a punishment reserved for those that commit violent and serious crimes and, furthermore, there is no program or policy that provides follow-up and that helps those who get out of prison to reintegrate themselves into society.
According to a study from México Evalúa, Prison in Mexico: For what?, in 2013, 54% of inmates were carrying out a sentence shorter than three years. Basically, a little more than half of the prison population that year had committed a minor crime, that would surely not be seen as worthy of receiving jail time in other parts of the world. Faced with a criminal prosecution system that tends to sell impunity to those that can pay for it, over the last few decades our prisons have been filling up with people that don’t have two thousands pesos [US$110] to bribe the Public Ministry [prosecutors] or the police and that, in general, have committed a minor crime.
Putting people in jail for committing crimes like fighting, non-violent threatening or robbery is not only a great injustice, but it is also a serious error in terms of public security. Jail means living in a hell of abuse, shortages, violence, and arbitrariness. Most of the time jails break them down emotionally in an irreversible way. Exposing youth that have not even committed violent or serious crimes to jail is to expose them to a level of violence and abuse that is not easy to overcome psychologically. I believe that jail will become the beginning of a slippery slope for them and many of them will re-offend, but this time in a more violent and serious way.
In fact, the data from the Federal Superior Auditor (ASF) that Animal Político recently published in an interesting article about this topic supports this idea. From 2007 to 2014, half of the inmates imprisoned that were released from a federal prison re-offended and returned to prison. In other words, the criminal re-offence rate is 50% in the federal sector. I guess something similar happens in the state sector. The federal resources that are spent within the prison on so-called “social reintegration activities” are only used for pretending that the penitentiary system has a purpose besides retribution and revenge. But it’s not like that. Prisons in Mexico, as they work, are a kind of “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. And when people get out of that hell, they are faced with complicated challenges to reintegrate themselves in society; 50% of them cannot achieve it.
How can the re-offence rate be lowered? It’s worthwhile taking a look at what’s happening in New York. On seven blocks from the Harlem neighbourhood (from 119th street to 126th street), one out of every 20 men has been imprisoned. In other words, there’s a large ex-convict population living on those seven blocks. A court was made for them, Harlem Parole Reentry Court, which, using some community services like addiction treatment and support for re-entering into the labor market, brought together by the weekly supervision of a judge, manages to help many ex-convicts get a job and helps them to reintegrate themselves into family life. The court lowered the criminal re-offence rate by 60% in 18 months. These results have made other parts of the U.S and of the world copy this model. In Mexico, senator Roberto Gil is the one pushing for this public policy.
The lesson is clear: harshness and vengeance are not useful on people broken down by their history, their decisions, and their environment. It’s the exact opposite; understanding and compassion is what produces the best results in terms of security and justice. Spanish original
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Ana Laura Magaloni Kerpel, Doctorate in Law, Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain); Research Professor, National System of Researchers at Center for Research and Economic Teaching (CIDE). Research Areas: Supreme Court and Comparative Constitutional Justice; Empirical Studies of Institutions of Justice; Institutions of Prosecution and Enforcement of Justice.