Justice System in the Dominican Republic - Timothy Schwartz - Open Salon
here is a link about Tim Schwartz's experience here, AN INCREADIBLE STORY ABOUT JUSTICE AND LIFE IN DOMINICAN JAIL
Fantastic research from Tim Schwartz:
Lord Have Mercy...look at some of these stats from the article above:
"With ten homicides per day in 2005, eliminating the 30% caused by police, if the Dominican authorities caught and convicted only half of the remaining killers and then gave them the required 10 to 30 year sentences, the penitentiaries would be full in eight years (Brea and Cabral 1999; Hoy 4 July 2005). That’s just the killers. This does not count the thousands of annual assaults in which people are maimed, raped, or robbed. Using the statistics that are available, between 1993 and 1997 the Dominican police arrested 391,661 people for acts of violence (Cabral and Cabral 2006); in 2002 alone there were 3,300 reported rapes (US Department of State 2005; Cabral 2004); in 2004, in the capital city of Santo Domingo (~25% of the population) there were 27,000 accusations of child abuse (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor February 25, 2004). And we still have not calculated in those caught in trafficking, larceny, extortion, selling stolen property, cattle rustling, human trafficking, conspiracy, fraud, and embezzlement, most of who slip easily through the system if they ever go to jail at all.
Take illegal boat voyages as an example. Hoy Newspaper (##) reported that from 2001 to 2004 the U.S. Coast Guard and the Dominican Navy detained 1,738 illegal boat voyages; 926 captains and organizers were “arrested.” The codified sentences, had they been convicted, vary from fines to as much as 30 years imprisonment, depending on their role. But of the 926 suspects caught, only seven were tried, one was convicted--really, "one." Another example is illegal drag racing in the streets of Santo Domingo, a sport wealthy young people began enjoying early 1990s. On Friday and Saturday nights two of the city’s main arteries are choked with young people drinking and socializing. In their midst the drag racers have hit and killed 78 pedestrians and 26 drivers (only 12 of whom were participants); 506 people were sent to justice; 172 of them more than once; none were ever convicted--yes, that's correct, "none" (El Caribe newspaper (##).
Also missing from the already overcrowded penitentiary cell blocks are many of the deportees from U.S. prisons. Between 1997 and 2005 there were 30,000 of them. In an agreement between the U.S. and Dominican authorities, Dominican nationals imprisoned in the United States are granted early release and deported to the Republic under the condition that they serve out the other half of their in a DR penitentiary. But most don’t. If they did than in 2005 alone the 5,206 Dominicans deported from the US that year would have filled 61% of the 8,561 spaces in the Dominican penitentiary.
Every year some 91,000 men pass inside of the walls of the Dominican penitentiaries. The authorities and lawyers, the DA’s, make, as explained, no investigations, and if someone gets out of the country they make no effort to get them back. That would cost time and money. They have only extradited three people from other countries in the past ten years. Three.
Much crime and very little prison space and rapid turnover rate is an indicator of a system completely out of synchrony with the codified laws. On September 27th, 2005 in the capital city--where lives about 25% of the population (2,400,000) -- there were 300,000 pending criminal cases (U.S. Department of State 2006). Where were the defendants? With only 12,902 prisoners crammed in the penitentiary space meant for 8,561 inmates we can comfortably conclude that very few were in prison.
http://www.dr1.com/forums/#_edn1
Did or will they ever get tried? Highly unlikely.
The rate of new cases added daily to the Dominican court dockets far outstrips that of review. Take the Dominican Supreme court for example. In 1996 the court had more than 15,000 pending cases; they resolved eight to ten cases per month (OAS 1999: Chapt 3).
If you are still not convinced that the formal codified Dominican legal system is ill equipped to deal with crime and enforcing civil obedience--and in fact does not deal with most of it-- take a look at the changes in crime rates. While crime has skyrocketed-- as evidenced by a 355% percent increase in homicides over the 13 years 1992 to 2005."
