We must build more McPrisons

We must build more McPrisons

Have you heard someone say that one country is 30% fairer than another? Of course not. Justice, situated on a continuum that goes from its total absence to Divine Justice, is very difficult to measure. Injustices are easier to identify and we all know that in most of our countries, prisons represent one of the worst.

To make the best possible use of scarce resources, it is important to be able to measure results and in this sense judicial reforms in many of our countries, sometimes financed with the help of multilateral entities, could advance faster by focusing on eliminating injustices. , for example by improving prison facilities, than by seeking justice by investing in courts.

In the first weeks of 2007 we have already been shocked with news about 16 prisoners killed in a fight in Venezuela and another 20 in El Salvador. Since the judges are very aware that the conditions in prisons are so shameful that they can even resemble those of a Nazi extermination camp, we sometimes wonder if the judges themselves should not be sued before the International Court of Justice. , for his crimes against humanity.

When we then observe how so many people who come from Central America are returned by the United States to their countries of origin, due to having committed some criminal act, even knowing that those countries do not have the necessary resources to face that problem and even less achieve the social rehabilitation of the prisoner, it is clear that we find ourselves immersed in a criminally vicious circle.

To get out of this centrifuge-of-terror, the United States should then help the countries of Central America to build and operate better prisons. Such collaboration could be effected by some states keeping prisoners in a prison in Central America, rather than in California, Virginia, or Maryland.

Today, in the U.S. There are about 2.2 million prisoners, many of whom are from Central America and each of them can cost their respective state between 30,000 to 20,000 dollars annually, depending on whether the prisons are public or are being operated by private companies. The above shows the immense win-win potential that exists in a proposal that, at the same time as managing to introduce modern prisons in Central America, makes it easier for the states of this country to achieve their fiscal balances.

The aforementioned prisons, which would be operated by specialized companies on the basis of strict quality certifications, such as ISO 9000 and supervised by independent organizations, could, once the investment has been amortized with the income from providing services to the United States, be transferred to the United States. governments of Central America.

In the same way that McDonald's-type franchises managed to transfer better service standards to many developing countries, McCárceles would help improve prison systems, educating specialized personnel and establishing points of comparison that stimulate the much-needed sense of the shame.

Translated by Goggle from an article in El Tiempo Latino of the Washington Post

It all originated here https://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2009/09/mcprison.html