Crisis of the Penitentiary System in Peru in Light of the Fight Against Drugs

Soberón Garrido R. · European Union and Its Neighbours in a Globalized World (2023) · DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-41253-0_7

Resumen

In the last 50 years Peruvian criminal policy has been focused on a “strong hand” approach, particularly referred to drugs and antiterrorism offenses. This situation has lead to legislative measures that increase punishment, reduce procedural and penitentiary benefits, create new offenses and give more powers to Police and Armed Forces, particularly in certain areas which had been previously appointed as Emergency areas. For those reasons, penitentiary system is absolutely overcrowded, with a general population of more than 90,000 interns when it has space just for 31,000 inmates in the 68 prisons distributed in the country. Almost 20% of them are accused for drug offenses, most of them, minor crimes. While several countries are crossing through an important period of reforms in terms of criminal law and drug offenses, Peru is in the opposite direction. Unless next government does something, we will be facing a huge humanitarian crisis. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.