After new deadly riots in Ecuador, President Guillermo Lasso decreed, Thursday, July 22, ” emergency state “ in the country’s prisons in order to ” restore order “. The latest official report shows 22 dead and sixty wounded.
“We are going to start a process of total restructuring of the prison system”, said the head of state from the province of Cotopaxi (center), where the majority of victims were recorded.
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Guillermo Lasso announced that the army will henceforth be responsible for controlling access to prisons, while the police will guard the interior. Until now, the security of prisons has been ensured by civilian prison guards. The director of the prison administration has been replaced by a soldier.
79 dead in one day in February
The prison administration had suspended, earlier in the day, certain activities “Capable of endangering the prison population and administrative officials”. According to a source with the administration, visits have been suspended in some establishments.
According to the governor of Cotopaxi, Oswaldo Coronel, on Wednesday, the rioters “Used large caliber firearms, as well as explosives which caused extensive damage inside the penitentiary center”. Prisoners managed to escape Thursday at dawn. 78 of them were caught by the police but it is not known how many detainees are still at large.
In February, gang clashes over control of the country’s main prisons resulted in the deaths of 79 inmates in a single day. This violence was marked by terrible scenes, with beheaded corpses, revealing the power of drug trafficking gangs in these overcrowded establishments.
30% prison overcrowding
Ecuador has about 60 penitentiary centers with a capacity of 29,000 places. Overcrowding is around 30%, with 38,000 detainees, watched by 1,500 guards while, according to experts, it would take 4,000 for effective control. According to the Ombudsman, there has been “103 assassinations” in Ecuadorian prisons in 2020.
In an attempt to counter the violence in prison, ex-President Lenin Moreno, replaced in May by Guillermo Lasso, had declared a state of emergency several times, especially in 2020 for three months. Since the start of the pandemic, Ecuador has used alternative sentences for minor offenses to reduce its prison population and thus reduced prison overcrowding from 42% to 30%.