Overcrowded jails: A humanitarian crisis
As of late, we now officially have the most overcrowded correctional facilities in the world with our 605 percent congestion rate, far ahead of Haiti’s 320 percent.
Daily TribuneAs of late, we now officially have the most overcrowded correctional facilities in the world with our 605 percent congestion rate, far ahead of Haiti’s 320 percent.
Passing almost unnoticed over the weekend was Prison Awareness Sunday, a day dedicated to the plight of PDL or persons deprived of liberty who are now languishing in jail.
Whether guilty or not of their convictions, PDLs and their families often find themselves on the margins of society.
Last Sunday, as the faithful gathered in churches all over the country, the Catholic Church encouraged everyone to reflect on and pray for prisoners and their families. Many of them are longing for understanding. But worse than that, they are also making do with sub-standard conditions in detention centers now considered the most overcrowded in the world.
A humanitarian crisis, according to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, is facing the Philippine corrections. The Philippine National Police detention centers, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and provincial jails, and the Bureau of Corrections prisons are not only full to the brim, but they are also teeming with emaciated and disease-carrying bodies.
In a PCIJ report, the BJMP population stood at 96,000 inmates upon the assumption of President Rodrigo Duterte as president in 2016. Two years later, the number grew to 160,000 PDLs, a 64 percent increase, as the war on drugs escalated.
As of late, we now officially have the most overcrowded correctional facilities in the world with our 605 percent congestion rate, far ahead of Haiti's 320 percent.
The humanitarian crisis, according to PCIJ has taken a massive toll on the physical and mental health of the PDLs. In the Quezon City Jail Male Dorm alone, around three to five inmates die every month due to simple and easy-to-treat diseases like manas (swelling), rumbu-rumbu (skin diseases), as well as heart attack — all because of lack of ventilation and lack of access to medical care.
In the whole of Metro Manila, around 40 PDLs die every month in the different BJMP jails, the PCIJ said.
Death rates, it pointed out, are worse in PNP detention centers, though most of these go unrecorded. Most PNP cells are single detention cells where 50 to 100 PDLs are cramped in cells designed for four to six people; additionally, PNP does not have a budget for food and medicines for detainees, unlike the BJMP and the BuCor that both have a food budget of P60 per day per inmate.
The sudden growth of the PDL population has also overwhelmed the country's criminal justice system as the number of local courts, judges, prosecutors, and defense lawyers remained stagnant and failed to keep up despite Supreme Court efforts to speed up the disposition of cases.
More than the squalid, overcrowded prisons, our PDLs also have to deal with the rotten criminal justice system which the present Justice Secretary, Jesus Crispin Remulla, is trying hard to rehabilitate.
Lately, the practice of inmates being used to commit dastardly criminal acts surfaced in the light of the ongoing probe of the Percy Lapid murder that involved inmates at the national penitentiary.
Before that, there were also cases of inmates plying their nefarious drug trade right inside the Bilibid prison using cell phones and intermediaries. There were also reports of shabu being cooked right inside the Bilibid facilities and of inmates enjoying luxurious perks inside their cells.
We could go on and on enumerating all these shenanigan acts right inside what is supposed to be correctional facilities.
But one thing is clear. Reforms must be initiated so that justice could really be served. A total overhaul of the system should be initiated. Guilty parties should be punished and the innocent should be exonerated.
For a punishment to be an effective deterrent, it must be swift, severe, and certain. The offender should understand that the punishment is intended for him or her. It means that for the horrible inhumane detention in jail and prison facilities to be a deterrent, it must be imposed swiftly, severely, and with certainty.