Lasso: We are going to restructure Ecuador’s prison system

(CNN Spanish) – Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso assured on CNN that his government is taking action to change the country’s prison system. Lasso announced on Tuesday a state of emergency in the prison sector after riots in two prisons in Guayaquil and Latacunga, which left at least 20 dead and 40 injured.

“We are going to dedicate ourselves to taking substantive measures for the restructuring of the (prison) system,” Lasso told Fernando del Rincón in CNN en Español’s Conclusions.

“One of the immediate options to reduce overcrowding is to recognize the prison rights of nearly 5,000 prisoners in Ecuador who have not been duly processed by SNAI,” he said.

The SNAI is the National Service of Comprehensive Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders of Ecuador.

Lasso, who appointed Army Colonel (r) Fausto Cobo Montalvo as SNAI director, said a priority is to reduce prison overcrowding, as well as “strengthen the system of prison guides.” On this point, he said that work would be done to improve training, increase the number of guides and their remuneration.

Lasso said that the State’s obligation is to respect the right of those who can leave prisons by complying with what the law requires of their sentence.

Lasso sympathized with the police officer who was raped during one of the riots on Wednesday. “We are working with the Prosecutor’s Office to sanction the aggressor in an exemplary manner,” he told CNN.

During a press conference from Latacunga, the president stressed that order has been restored in the prisons and that the riots on Wednesday were between criminal gangs.

Lasso announced at that press conference that the purpose is “to mobilize all the human and financial resources necessary to restore order.”

“They are wrong if they believe that this government is going to act with the same lukewarmness as the previous ones,” said the president as a message to those who “want to intimidate” the country.

“They are wrong if they think our hand is going to shake,” he said. “All of you will be defeated. We are going to use the full power of the law to impose the rule of law, guarantee peace and human rights in the prisons of Ecuador.”

With information from Abel Alvarado