From time to time, the problem rooted in the penitentiary system acquires unusual notoriety, either due to the usual attempts at violence in prisons, revealed by inmate riots, or by criminal activities perpetrated from within the prisons themselves, or by reports containing information about prisons, the significance of which arouses media resonance, as occurred with the report structured at the headquarters of the National Public Defense Office dating from April of the current year.
Before the creation of the National Public Defense Office, our nation was informed about the vernacular prison situation through reliable reports prepared by the Penitentiary Pastoral, an entity governed under the mystique of the Catholic Church, but since 2005 the institution established by Law no. 277-04 was enabled to deal with such an official task.
Indeed, Law no. 277-04, on the National Public Defense Service, through its article 21, numeral 6, put this institution in charge of submitting an annual report on detention and imprisonment, inherent in the Dominican penitentiary system, but this time it must be said that it is an official text that could well be published as a printed book on said matter, whose content is very useful for all citizens in general, which indicates that this documentary piece has taken a Copernican turn under the regency editorial of its director, the distinguished jurist Rodolfo Valentín Santos.
El Caribe | By Daniel Nolasco | June 16, 2023