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Sunday, April 30, 2006
Sunstar Essay: The right to life and space
By Erma M. Cuizon
Sun.star essay
Among other issues that plague this town is the right of prisoners to more than standing room only. Not to talk of the right of former prisoners to life, what with vigilante apparitions occurring in street corners by day or by night.
The right to sit and the right to lie down, even the right to dream, the right to look back through the years from a humane corner, which could lead to the right to change as a person—-this goes with true correctional, the system promising “bagong buhay” at BBRC.
If prisoners are crowding each other, as a city councilor reported –--more or less 2,500 inmates for a place that was supposed to house only 250 inmates---they could become worse human beings than before they were caught by the police and “rehabilitated.” Having deprived them of the right to be human, even just of the simple, basic right to lie down a bit more comfortably, what are we turning prisoners into?
If housing some 250 inmates is not luxurious enough, what about for inmates who need ten times more of space at their number now?
And why do we know the true conditions at the BBRC just now that there had been no profiling of the inmates, for one, according to Councilor Edgardo Labella.
The facts are almost surreal--–there are inmates, and quite a number of them, who are overstaying, as though they were good citizens and deserving more of time in a stylish prison.
What’s grotesque is the fact that some of them could have already served their sentence if finally, finally convicted. As it is, after overstaying because the case is still stagnant in the court, do they have to do another “overstay” to serve a sentence of a conviction that comes late?
Or do the judge count back and say, “You’ve just one year more and five months, congrats.”
How about those who have been found innocent, after all these years of confinement? They get released from prison, one inmate less (alleluia!), but into a desolate free life.
Overcrowding could send anyone mad.
In 2004, there was a news item about a prison riot in Bazil, Urso Branco, which lasted for five days and killed 14 prisoners, five of whom were mutilated, some of them with heads chopped off and thrown outside the wall. Besides the fact that trouble was spawned by two rival prisoner groups, all of them also demanded fast solution to the problem of overcrowding.
The prison house was built for only 360 inmates but was holding over a thousand prisoners. In 2002, there was an earlier riot where 27 inmates died.
BBRC seems to have the overcrowding condition worse. Some 2,500 inmates in a space for only 250.
So why is there overcrowding?
The fact of overstaying prisoners is only one case. Those serving bailable offenses should be let go, goes the suggestion.
There’s probably a lack of system that would meet problems of “overstay-ers” not only with regards to late conviction but also as a matter of “outgrowing” the place--–like in the case of prisoners who are sick and old, who both take normal space but who can now probably hardly walk up a mall.
Consider the case of Nigeria where authorities at one point considered setting free 25,000 prisoners. But they have a terrible overcrowding problem because they also have political detainees.
For BBRC, Labella thinks there should be profiling.
In our ignorance, we always thought there had been profiling, especially in the case of prisoners. If it’s important to profile employees and workers for a company, it should be necessary to profile prisoners for the safety of all in the correctional.
You’d need data--–the status of cases, the type of sentences (bailable, non-bailable?), the categorizing of prisoners (overstaying or serving right?), etc.
After the profiling, decongest, is the suggestion of the city council committee on laws, ordinances, public accountability and good governance.
A better system must come out of this, is what some people think. This is while there ought to be a solution to the matter of decent food for prisoners because they are human beings.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 30, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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