On Wednesday, 18 September, inmates at La Victoria prison in the National District staged an uprising which resulted in the death of at least one prisoner and eight others receiving injuries. The prisoners gave a series of demands to the attorney general of the National District, Guillermo Moreno, the chief of the National Police, Camilo Antonio Nazir Tejada, and the director of prisons, Bernardo Santana Paez.
The demands included the transfer of minors from the prison into reformatories, better medical treatment or outright releases for sick inmates, faster release orders after completion of sentences, and more speedy judicial processes, as the majority of the prisoners have yet to be officially charged for the crimes they were originally accused of committing.
In addition, the inmates demanded that those charged for the first time for a minor crime be sent to a special “officer” as a form of probation, and for those being held provisionally before being charged have their files studied by lawyers from the attorney general’s office before being sent to La Victoria.
Prisoners at the famous jail in the National District have carried out similar uprisings on several occasions during the past two years in protest against the slow judicial processes, what they claim to be arbitrary detentions and arrivals to the prison, and the overcrowding which prompted former attorney general of the National District, Zoila Martinez, to say that La Victoria “is not even fit for rats.”