Sarita Colonia Prison, Callao district, Lima. A cell designed to hold four people can end up housing 15 inmates. Prisoners who cannot find room in the cell have to sleep on mattresses in the corridors.
Imprisonment, already a stressful experience under normal conditions, is made worse by overcrowding, which undermines human dignity and impairs the physical and mental health of detainees. This clouds the prospect for their rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
Urgent measures are needed to address overcrowding in prisons because it affects how the penal system works as a whole. In January 2014, overcrowding reached 119%, according to the Peruvian National Penitentiary Institute (INPE). The 68 prisons nationwide are designed to hold only 31,010 people, whereas the prison population today stands at 67,891.
Prison overcrowding compromises the prison administration’s ability to meet detainees’ basic needs in terms of living conditions, water, sanitation, medical care, family visits and legal assistance. All services are overwhelmed. This also makes it difficult to maintain order and harmony among the inmates.
For over five years, the ICRC has implemented a strategy of strengthening the INPE in order to promote a change in its institutional culture. The aim is to encourage prison officials to adopt better practices based on minimum international standards of prison management.
Poor living conditions and inadequate services have consequences, including tight living space, less activity outside the cells, difficulty in getting access to social services and job or study workshops, and less preparation, which hinders resocialization. In Sarita Colonia Prison only 10% of the inmates can attend workshops.
Addressing the problem of overcrowding requires a series of actions, encompassing legislative reform, more and better infrastructure, alternatives to imprisonment, tackling the issue of prolonged pre-trial detention, and close and ongoing coordination among the parties carrying out joint actions over the short, medium and long term.
Overcrowding occurs when a prison’s population exceeds its capacity. Overcrowding in Peru’s 68 prisons stands at 119%, according to official figures. A round-table debate on emergency measures to address the prison overcrowding crisis was held in January 2014 and attended by high-level government officials and representatives of civil society. Please click below to see a slideshow of the crowded conditions in Sarita Colonia Prison, Callao district, Lima.
