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Special Report: Crime and security – trends and solutions (ISSN 17414474)
Prison reform is urgently needed
Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean face a difficult situation relating to the functioning of their prison systems. Some would argue that they are, in fact, experiencing a major prison crisis, marked by massive overcrowding, weak prison authorities, and regular outbreaks of violence. In January 2017 a total of 130 prisoners died as a result of bloody battles between gangs within Brazilian prisons in Manaus and Boa Vista. Some of the victims were decapitated. In February 2016, 49 prisoners were killed in a riot and fire at the Topo Chico prison in Mexico, attributed to fighting between members of rival drug cartels. There are many other examples of prison-based massacres. In one of the worst disasters of its type, 350 prisoners died as a result of a fire in the Comayagua prison in Honduras in 2012. In another incident, 58 prisoners died in a jail at Uribana in Venezuela in 2013.
- Executive summary
- The homicide rate: fluctuating, but too high
- Organised crime remains resilient
- Crime remains a profitable business
- A heroin epidemic in the United States?
- Colombian cocaine production surges ahead
- Prison reform is urgently needed
- White collar crime: the battle against ‘grand corruption’
- The criminal justice system struggles to cope