First change: 12.10.2022 – 04:13
Ecuador continues to face a spiral of prison service violence as criticism pelts President Guillermo Lasso’s government. So far in 2022, the riots have claimed the lives of about 100 prisoners, a number that has risen to 450 since 2020. The constant unrest, deaths, and squabbles between gangs and groups linked to the drug trade have become the perfect formula for precipitating a crisis the government has been unable to face or turn around.
The National Service for Comprehensive Care of Persons Deprived of Liberty is responsible for 36 prisons across the country. The director of this public institution, Pablo Ramírez, announced his resignation from his post, further unsettling the prison system.
The Standing Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CPDH) has questioned the role of the Ecuadorian state and considered classifying the prison crisis as a “genocide” because the state failed to make enough efforts to prevent massacres, nor did it succeed in preventing that Prevent weapons, ammunition and explosives from entering the prisons, exposing a corrupt system infiltrated by criminal gangs.
Why is Ecuador’s prison crisis out of control? What is the reason for the incompetence of the government? How crime-pervasive is the prison system? We analyze it in this issue of El Debate together with our guests:
– Saudia Levoyer, journalist and university professor.
– Mario Pazmiño, Advisor General for Security and Defense, former Director of the Secret Service in Ecuador and Professor at the Andean Autonomous Regional University (UNIANDES).