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Ecuador continues to face a spiral of violence in the prison service, while criticism rains down on the government of President Guillermo Lasso. So far in 2022, the riots have claimed the lives of some 100 prisoners, a figure that rises to 450 since 2020. The constant riots, deaths and disputes between gangs and groups linked to drug trafficking have become the perfect formula to create a crisis that the Government has not been able to face or reverse.
The National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty is in charge of 36 prisons throughout the country. The director of this public entity, Pablo Ramírez, announced his retirement from office, leaving the prison system further adrift.
The Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CPDH) has questioned the role of the Ecuadorian State and has considered classifying the prison crisis as a “genocide”, because beyond the fact that the State has not made sufficient efforts to prevent massacres, It has also not been successful in preventing the entry of weapons, ammunition and explosives into the prisons, which exposes a corrupt system infiltrated by criminal gangs.
Why is the prison crisis in Ecuador out of control? What is the reason for the inability of the Government? How permeated by crime is the prison system? We analyze it in this edition of El Debate together with our guests:
– Saudia Levoyer, journalist and university professor.
– Mario Pazmiño, general consultant in security and defense, former director of Intelligence in Ecuador and professor at the Autonomous Regional University of the Andes (UNIANDES).
