Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

CHILE: Crackdown on Crime Overlooks Real Problems

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Jul 19 2006 (IPS) - A group of demonstrators who took to the streets Saturday in the coastal city of Viña del Mar, 112 kilometres from Santiago, may have borne a resemblance to the street protests of the 1970s.

But instead of chanting slogans in support of human rights, these weekend warriors were calling on the government to follow through on tougher penal system measures, despite the proposals’ failure to address overcrowding and prisoner abuse.

The march was the second organised by the Citizen’s Anticrime Movement (CAM), founded mid-June in Chile’s capital.

The group is seeking tougher punishments for repeat offenders, those who kill during robberies and thieves who break into occupied homes. Members also call for accused criminals to be held without bail if deemed a “danger to society,” as well as higher salaries for uniformed and investigative police.

In mid June, some 2,000 “victims of crime” streamed through the capital’s downtown streets, assembled by CAM leader Gonzalo Fuenzalida. The young Chilean professional himself was recently violently attacked in his home – his eight-month-old daughter was in the house at the time.

Having been traumatised by violent crime, few marchers are concerned about prison conditions.

As Felipe González, director of the Human Rights Programme at the private Diego Portales University (UDP), explained to IPS, “The major issues facing the prison system are overcrowding, lack of proper medical attention, torture and abuse, prison-guard corruption and the lack of transparency and control in penitentiary management.”

Furthermore, “no extensive, relevant rehabilitation programs are being offered – only a few scattered initiatives. Not one of our prisons rehabilitates prisoners or adequately prepares them to re-enter society,” he added.

These very problems were brought up in Chile’s most recent Annual Report on Human Rights, published by UDP and endorsed by the Supreme Court of Justice itself.

The university reported that 39,000 prisoners are currently piled in a system with a total official capacity of 24,000. Seventy percent of penitentiaries are overcrowded, and the population behind bars is growing by eight percent per year.

While there are no official figures on violence in penitentiaries, the Confederation of Relatives and Friends of Convicts (CONFAPRECO) recorded 41 prisoner deaths in 2005.

The UDP report also documented issues of prison-guard corruption, and pointed out that staffing increases have lagged far behind inmate population growth rates.

Construction delays plaguing 10 new prison complexes have not helped the situation. In 2000, the government awarded the concessions to private companies. Scheduled for completion in the first half of this year, latest estimates say delivery will not take place until 2009.

Despite these issues, a recent wave of robberies in jewellery stores and private homes that received heavy media coverage has the government focusing on tough crime fighting measures instead.

Drawing from proposals submitted by the right-leaning opposition and centre-left coalition that has governed since 1990, the Executive Branch presented to the legislative Congress “urgent” bills to reform the Penal Code and The Penal Process Code.

The reforms include harsher sentences for repeat offenders, give police the power to enter premises without a warrant if there is evidence a crime is being committed, and focus uniformed police work on preventative actions.

“Even though crime rates have not increased, citizen fear levels are up. We need to improve our current legal system, so we are better able to prevent crime and, consequently, help people feel safer,” argued Interior Minister Andrés Zaldívar.

On Jul. 6, Chile’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) released the results of the second National Urban Survey on Citizen Safety, conducted in 2005. The data revealed that close to half the country’s population (48.6 percent) are worried about becoming a victim, even though the number of households affected by crime dropped from 43 percent to 38.3 percent.

The same survey reported that more than 50 percent of Chileans have stopped carrying cash and wearing jewellery; 63.8 percent no longer leave the house alone, and 60.7 avoid going out at night.

Correspondingly, private security company sales grew 29 percent in two years, to 711 million dollars in 2005. According to these estimates, Chileans spent an average of almost 50 dollars each on security.

“Like all reform, there may be additional modifications to the penal process, and we need to be willing to make them. But anyone who thinks a few Penal Code amendments will resolve the problem of personal safety is flat out wrong,” Jorge Burgos, deputy for the governing Christian Democratic Party (PDC), told IPS.

He believes additional efforts should be channelled to issues such as drug addiction, school drop-out rates, and family violence.

The highest-profile incidents include a Jun. 24 attack on Supreme Court president Enrique Tapia, and a home robbery Jul. 1 in Senator and PDC president Soledad Alvear’s home, while she was in another room.

Alvear served as Justice minister in the Eduardo Frei-Ruiz Tagle administration (1994-2000) and was a proponent of the current prison system, which was gradually implemented between 2000 and 2005.

In the past five years the system has moved from an inquisitive focus, in which a single judge investigated the case and dictated the sentence, to one designed to protect the human rights of all parties, including the accused, and that incorporates a public trial.

Despite the high number of sentences handed down to date, the new process has been criticised for being “soft” on criminals, given that district attorneys generally authorise provisional liberty during the investigative phase of less serious cases.

“What you see in the media, and the way the issues are generally addressed, reflects growing collective hysteria and a demonisation of criminals and the poor,” said José Bengoa, vice president of the non-governmental Citizenship and Justice Corporation. Early this month, the state-run daily La Nación conducted a study of TV news content in the 9 o’clock broadcasts. It found that two private stations filled almost 50 percent of their shows with issues related to violence and crime.

Andrea Correa, coordinator for Corporación Caleta Sur, a center that specialises in rehabilitating drug-addicted and at-risk youth, told IPS that an infinite number of generally overlooked situations must be addressed before going ahead with more prisons.

“Clearly money for rehabilitation is scarce, but sending too many people to jail is not the main problem – it’s the way in which poverty and marginalisation are viewed in this country. Inequality often sets violent cycles in motion, both on the streets and homes,” she noted.