President of Peru announces a comprehensive restructuring of the prison system

The interim president of Peru, the right-wing José Jerí, announced a comprehensive restructuring of the country’s prison system, which will include a new state entity, after finding «critical administrative deficiencies» that compromise the operability and control of penal facilities nationwide.

Within this comprehensive reform, the creation of the National Superintendency of Infrastructure and Penitentiary Reform (SUNIR) stands out, an entity that will assume the responsibilities of the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE), which until now was in charge of the country’s prisons. Jerí led a prison operation early this Sunday, in the style of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, in the prisons of Huacho and Huaral, in the department of Lima, where he explained to local media that this new institution will merge the capabilities of the INPE and the National Program of Youth Centers.

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The System Changes

He pointed out that the objective of this measure is to remedy the vulnerabilities detected in the custody and rehabilitation system. He assured that this reform will alter established structures and affect particular interests that have generated a state of institutional comfort, but maintained that this change “is irreversible in favor of public safety”. The main focus of the National Superintendency of Infrastructure and Penitentiary Reform will be the modernization of prisons and the optimization of internal control protocols, in order to achieve a more efficient management of the resources allocated to the sector.

The detected deficiencies

The president visited Ancón I penitentiary on the dawn of this Saturday, also in the Lima region, where he acknowledged the existence of administrative deficiencies that demonstrate that the integral restructuring of the system “is urgent and cannot be postponed”. He detailed that during this visit, it took hours to locate a prisoner who allegedly led a gang of extortionists from the prison, and the prison itself did not know if he was there or if he had been transferred to the maximum security prison of Challapalca a few weeks ago.

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“When the State cannot accurately determine where an inmate is located, nor what decisions were made about their transfer, the disorder ceases to be an administrative matter and becomes a factor that facilitates the continuity of crime,” said Jerí from the prison. He maintained that the State cannot allow information gaps regarding the location and status of the prison population, and this case registered in the Ancón I prison is a sample of the shortcomings of an obsolete and inefficient registration system. In the midst of this crisis in the penitentiary system, this week the head of Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute, Iván Paredes, announced his resignation from the position, amid rumors of possible irregular hiring within the prison institution.