The highly-respected authority on jails in Latin America, Roberto Santana called for President Luis Abinader to end corruption of the military and police in Dominican jails. “President, take the Police out of La Victoria,” Santana said when speaking during a panel on the situation of jails in the Dominican Republic on Esta Noche con Mariasela TV program on 24 May 2022 with TV host Mariasela Alvarez. Santana called for the President to resume the actions called for in the Master Plan for Jail Reform. Santana alerted that actions taken by the new Jail Cabinet at the Attorney General Office have caused the jail reform programs to go backwards instead of forwards.
During the TV program, Santana denounced major corruption in jail management. He says he has reported the problems and provided the solutions to Attorney General and President Abinader.
Recently, local media has been covering the findings in the latest report on the situation in Dominican jails by the Dominican government body, the Office of Public Defense. The study reports that 40% of prisoners sleep on the floor in Dominican jails. This is up from a study in 2012 that revealed that 24% of inmates slept on the floor.
During the Esta Noche con Mariasela TV program, Rodolfo Valentin, director of the Oficina de Defensa Publica, said that for the 2021 report, the Attorney General Office allowed the surveyors to carry out videos and photographs that sustain the findings of the 2021 study.
During the TV program, Santana denounced major corruption in the management of the jails that are under the Attorney General Office.
He said the situation is of awareness of the authorities of the Attorney General Office that have not instated corrections. He urged that the police and military be removed from the management of jails because they are part of the problem not the solution.
Roberto Santana said that the efforts to reform jails he begun several years ago are moving backwards instead of forwards.
Santana criticized staff at the Attorney General Office for not allowing prisoners to be transferred to the Las Parras jail built when Attorney General Jean Alain Rodriguez was in charge. Rodriguez is in jail at Najayo accused of major corruption at the Attorney General Office.
Santana says he presented to the Abinader administration and the Attorney General a project for the redesign of the Las Parras jail (La Nueva Victoria) so the constructed units could be used. He said the Attorney General Office has not moved forward with the relocation of the inmates because there are many that argue they have to wait for all the audits into past corruption be completed.
Santana explained that there are buildings at Las Parras that have been ready for more than eight months and were delivered and received by the technical staff at the Attorney General Office as usable. “It is not an engineering matter; it is a political issue,” said Santana. He said for reasons unknown there are people in the Attorney General Office that don’t want the jail reform to advance.
He blamed the technical staff for dismantling the Las Parras jail when the defects can be corrected and the new jail put to use. He blamed the Presidency for letting this happen. “The government should have sat down with the Attorney General and said, ‘we have a security problem and need to move forward.’ ” He said the government should have insisted the move to the new jail be fast-tracked.
Santana also criticized that the government has not moved ahead with the plan to build more jails in the provinces. He said the overpopulation in Higuey, El Seibo, Cotuí and Bonao are creating explosive security issues.
He said it seems many want to continue to corruption in jails. He denounced that the person in charge of security at the old La Victoria Jail, the country’s largest, receives RD$7 million a week in corruption money paid by drug traffickers, businesses in the jail and relatives visiting prisoners.
“The government, according to my vision, has not given priority to the jail matters,” said Santana.
He criticized the creating of a jail cabinet at the Attorney General Office with people that know nothing about jail management and instead have an apparent parallel political agenda.
He mentioned many of these situations he mentions are hidden from Attorney General Miriam German. He said the Attorney General Office staff says there is no money, but wage increases have benefited key officers.
He said jail reform has been drowning in government red tape. He mentioned that the new Ministry of Housing is now in charge of building the needed jails. In frustration, he said that August 2024 could come without this government adding a single needed jail cell.
“Why are they insisting on not finishing the La Parra jail,” he asked out loud, hinting then that “are there people interested in keeping what is happening at La Victoria?”
Santana mentioned the millions that the many businesses at La Victoria jail move. “The government knows this and has not done anything to solve this,” said Santana. Santana criticized that the Police and the military control the jails.
He said that in the past government, the new jail model situation had deteriorated by 40%, but 60% of the units were operating. He said the deterioration has significantly deteriorated in the Abinader administration. He said that 500 members trained to work in the new model have resigned. He mentioned pressures on Roberto Hernandez, director of the new model and Hilda Patricia Lagombra, coordinator of the new model jails, to resign, but that their resignations have not been accepted by Attorney General Miriam German.
Santana stressed that it is very important for the staff at the old model and the new model not to mix. But he said under the new administration what is being done is to send new model people to the old jails where the real commanders are the police and military. He mentioned the rotten apples prevail, causing the backtracking of jail reform.
At the end of the TV program, host Mariasela Alvarez urged First Lady Raquel Arbaje to motivate President Luis Abinader to listen to Roberto Santana.
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Esta Noche con Mariasela
El Dia
Diario Libre
Defensa Publica
2021 Report on Jails in Dominican Republic
Diario Libre
25 May 2022