Chile’s prisons are like garbage cans: official
December 27th, 2010 - 9:37 am ICT by IANSSantiago, Dec 27 (IANS/EFE) An official of Chile’s Catholic Church has said jails in the country are like “garbage cans”, referring to the overcrowded conditions in most of them.”Our prisons are perfect garbage cans, where people are treated like human garbage,” Alfonso Baeza, a church priest and former vicar of the Pastoral Workers Organisation and the Pastoral Social Organisation, said in a statement released on El Mercurio website.
Baeza said most of the society want prisoners “to rot in jail like garbage in a city dump”.
In an accident that occurred in San Miguel Prison Dec 8, when 81 inmates died in a fight followed by a fire, Baeza had to rush to the prison, located eight km from the Chilean capital, and mediate between inmates’ families and prison authorities.
“The jails are worse than shantytowns. I think the poorest slum in Chile has better living conditions than our prisons, with the difference that in slums people are free,” he said.
“I believe our country is becoming very callous. Even the prison guards live and work as if they were prisoners,” the priest said, and again made a call for pardon, but without mentioning cases of human-rights violations.
“Prisoners are of little use to politicians out to win votes. Some gain more popularity by looking really tough on crime,” he said.
Chile’s jails currently house an inmate population of some 54,000 in an infrastructure designed to hold about 34,000.
–IANS/EFE
pm
- US priest stabbed to death in Venezuela - Apr 30, 2010
- Chilean prisoners living in subhuman conditions: Minister - Dec 14, 2010
- 43 hurt in uprising at Chile prison - Dec 23, 2010
- Five accused of sex crimes slain in Venezuela prison - Jan 03, 2012
- 2,000 El Salvador inmates suffer from food poisoning - Jun 20, 2011
- Mexico ships 273 inmates to island prison - Oct 24, 2011
- Four die in Mexican prison brawl - Oct 22, 2011
- Woman gunned down in church in Colombia - Aug 21, 2012
- Priest hacked to death in Colombia - Sep 14, 2011
- 16 die in Venezuela prison violence - Oct 01, 2010
- Three killed in Venezuela prison riot - Sep 28, 2010
- 20 die in Mexico prison fight - Oct 16, 2011
- Honduras prison fire: President vows full investigation - Feb 16, 2012
- 29 prison personnel held over Mexico massacre - Feb 24, 2012
- 150 inmates escape from Mexico prison - Dec 19, 2010
Tags: catholic church, chilean capital, city dump, el mercurio, garbage cans, human garbage, human rights violations, inmate population, inmates, jails, pastoral workers, prison authorities, prison guards, prisoners, prisons, san miguel, slum, slums, social organisation, vicar