Soaring Prison Population in Argentina Reflects Latin American Trend

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By Associated Press

Published: 03/04/2003

With a jab, the officer pushes open the heavy iron door, then steps into the dank confines of this overcrowded prison on the outskirts of Argentina's capital.
A labyrinth of passageways spreads out in all directions. Corridors reek of urine and tobacco smoke, permeating the laundry strung up by inmates to dry. The light is feeble, the air so damp and heavy it is hard to breathe.
'To live here is like living in a place worse than hell,' said Luis Alberto Lima, a 56-year-old inmate who has spent the past year and a half confined here. His hell has a name but it could be anywhere in Latin America: the overcrowded Olmos penitentiary, a maximum-security prison located 45 miles (60 kilometers) from this South American city.
Although Olmos prison was built in 1939 to house 2,000 inmates, today its population exceeds 3,400.
Inside each cell, 12 men sleep together almost side-by-side on worn mattresses, crowded together. A hole in the middle of the floor serves as the toilet. 'The ideal number would be 2,000 prisoners, but we suffer from the same problem of overpopulation as the rest of the prisons in Buenos Aires province,' said the prison director, Julio Quintana.
Argentina's prison overcrowding is at its worst in this province, where 24,200 prisoners are being held in facilities designed for 15,900, according to the Center for Legal and Social Studies in Buenos Aires.
'The situation in the province has reached critical levels,' said Iliana Arduino, assistant director of the Institute for Comparative Studies in Penal and Social Sciences, a U.N.-affiliated research group in Argentina.
'No one would ever suggest having two patients to a hospital bed or six students to a desk, but that is what they are doing with prisoners in these facilities.' Argentina is not alone. Throughout Latin America, from Mexico to Brazil, rising domestic crime rates have placed an ever-increasing number of inmates into overburdened prisons.
Since the 1980s, crime in Latin America has exploded, lending to its classification as the second-most violent region in the world after sub-Saharan Africa. Mayra Buvinic, chief of the social development division at the Inter-American Development Bank, conceded that 'once violence starts, violence begets violence.'
The result is evident in the region's prisons.
The Latin American Institute for Crime Prevention and the Treatment of Offenders, a U.N. agency, has classified 26 Latin American countries with overpopulated prisons that exceed critical rates.
In the case of Argentina, soaring crime rates have placed a huge strain on the country's outdated judicial and penitentiary systems.
Between 1991 and 2001, the number of crimes committed in the country skyrocketed by 140 percent to 1.2 million, according to the Argentine Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.
At the same time, Argentina's prison population has grown by an average of 50 percent, fueling what critics call a breeding ground for violence.
In Venezuela, more than 276 prisoners were killed in riots or gang clashes in 2000. In Brazil, a riot in September at a prison outside Sao Paulo left two officers dead as 60 inmates escaped.
At Olmos and other Argentine prisons, such violent responses to a rapid increase in prisoners have been tamer as officers have kept tight control. But inmates say overcrowding has led to greater tensions.
'There cannot be any friendships here,' declared one prisoner named 'Leiva.' 'I do not trust anyone, not even my shadow,' he confessed. Penal system experts argue that overcrowding within Latin American prisons is a symptom of broader social problems.
In Argentina, observers point to a breakdown in the justice system.
'Building more jails will not solve prison overcrowding if the government does not formulate policies to prevent crime,' said Arduino, of the U.N.-affiliated research institute.
As politicians struggle in their response, the daily scourge of the prisoners at Olmos continues: Water runs down chipped walls, a cold dampness filters through broken windows and the silence is only broken by inmates shouting, out of anger and anguish.

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