Lurigancho Prison

By Christina Swan

In scholarship on human rights there are many contradictions. Discussions on human rights as they relate to policies and people in the criminal justice system are particularly polarized and contradictory. The Lurigancho Prison in Lima, Peru is a good example.

The 30 year long internal conflict in Peru revolved around the threat of ruthless terrorists groups who wanted the country to have a communist state, and an equally ruthless government willing to do anything to exterminate the terrorist threat. In the process, innocent people were sent to prisons under the accusation of being involved in terrorism. Many of these innocents were people who spoke out against, or reported human rights violations on the part of the government. It wasn’t uncommon to be convicted without a fair trial. Some of these political prisoners were sent to Lurigancho Prison. Above is a photo taken of some of the inmates packed into a cell.
On the morning of June 18th, 1986 in 3 different prisons in Peru including Lurigancho Prison, inmates took hostages and began rioting. Some sources say that specifically at Lurigancho, the rioting and violence was sparked because it was visitor day and the guards were not allowing visitors in. In a grueling two day bout, police and military fought and killed to take back control of the prisons. The president at the time, Alan Garcia, stated that after an initial investigation in the first 6 days after the rioting 40 to 50 people in Lurigancho alone were murdered after they surrendered. Over 100 people inmates died in the fight. Although Garcia promised justice for the massacre victims, it would take over 20 years for the Peruvian government to get serious about investigating the police and military killing and brutality that took place over those two days, and even then, mostly due to external pressure.

Today the prison is not much better. National Geographic featured this prison as one of the worst in the world. Above is a picture of the entrance way the visitors come through. It leads to a gate that surrounds a large complex of about 20 pavilions. The gate around the complex is about as far as the prison guards go. The inmates have complete reign and control over what goes on inside the gates. They decide who gets food, who has a place to sleep, who lives, who dies, who is sexually abused. . Many of the pavilions have one or several leaders that all get together and have meetings about various daily dealings of the prison. They are the only kind of organization this prison has. Due to this fact one can only get a rough estimate of how many inmates there really are in the prison. The official capacity of Lurigancho is 1600, and experts estimated in the year 2000 that there were about 6000 inmates.

The availability of elicit substances, and weapons is high. Also, because of the inmates’ propensity to have sexual intercourse amongst themselves, there is a high risk of HIV/AIDS, and other sexually related diseases. Above is a picture of two transvestites who live at Lurigancho. As evidenced by their gaunt faces and bodies, they are infected with HIV and have no way to good treatment. Tuberculosis is also a problem.
In a broad sense, you could argue that many of these individuals are in this prison because they violated someone else’s human rights. Hans Veeken wrote in the British Medical Journal that some of these inmates have come to this prison without any trial; therefore the government is violating some of the inmates’ human rights as well.
The polarized part of the discussion on policies regarding prisons is the question of whether people who violated the rights of someone else are entitled to those rights themselves. In many ways it would seem that the Peruvian government does not think so. It appears the well being of these inmates are not a priority to them: they are left at the mercy of other inmates with no protection; they have little access to health care; food is scarce; they have limited access to the judiciary system to try to appeal their convictions.
On the other end of the spectrum are human right proponents who say that an individual who murdered or raped someone else deserves to have access to legal help, food, water, shelter, safety, health care, etc.
Who says which view is right? In many ways this specific example illustrates some of the broad and widespread discussions on human rights. Arguments about the definition of human rights and who is entitled to them seems to have existed since the idea of human rights itself. It would seem that until there is a comprehensive and universal consensus on these things, human rights violations will always be a problem.

Sources:

Mobilizing for Human Rights in Latin America by Edward Cleary
Lurigancho Prison: Lima’s “High School” for Criminality by Hans Veeken
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/player.html?channel=60850
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB64/index.html
www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/Diario-e/heroe-e.htm

Corrupt Police Officers on Peruvian Roads

By Milagros Del Aguila

Peru has a long history involving Police corruption. It is an ongoing issue that until recent years has caught some attention from the Peruvian government. In general, police officers are placed in the position to enforce the laws and to defend the public from any type of abuses. However, the majority of Peruvian police officers, especially policemen, do the opposite. They abuse their power by intimidating and harassing Peruvian citizens leaving them resource less when trying to defend themselves. This has inevitably led to the lack of respect and trust Peruvian citizens have toward toward police officials. For the purpose of this blog, the abuse of power of police officers will be focused on the area of public transportation.

When thinking about corruption, it is inevitable to think of the word “why”. Why are Peruvian police officers corrupt? A very clear reason could be due to the fact that most of them are underpaid. Most Police officers risk their lives on the job site; nevertheless, the Peruvian government does not make an effort to appreciate and recognize their work by providing them with fair compensation. Then, police officers tired of being looked down upon by their supervisors, superiors and government decided that the best course of action would be to go on a National strike on April 5th, 2010 called “La Jornada Nacional de Lucha” directed by the General Secretary of the Peruvian Police Union “Sindicato General de la Unica Policia Peruana”, member of Policia Nacional del Peru (PNP) Richard Hernan Ortega Quispe. The tool used to spread and promote the National strike was the popular website Youtube.com. A video narrated by Ortega, exposed the necessities of Peruvian police officers such as better salaries and health care. Ortega also expressed the repression he and his colleagues feel by the Peruvian government. By organizing a peaceful strike, they were looking for dignity and recognition of their work. What could have provoked this strike is the fact that police officers are not provided by the PNP with the basics needs such as new uniforms. In fact, “a survey by the Ombudsman’s Office reported that numerous police officers have not had their uniforms renewed in over four years (police have to pay for their own uniforms)” (Peruvian Times). This means that the Peruvian government cannot and should not expect a great performance from its police officers if it is not doing its part to recognize their work. Another issue is that police stations are in serious state of disrepair. To illustrate, 25 percent of police stations are in need of repair and 5 percent are in need of urgent repair (Peruvian Times). Hence, not only police officers need to be provided with basic needs to perform their duties, but the facilities where they perform these duties must be repaired to help them make their work more productive and effective.

Nonetheless, the fact that police officers are underpaid and underrepresented by the Peruvian government should not give them a green light to manipulate the laws and abuse their power against the general public. Unfortunately, police officers found a way to come up with the extra cash needed to cover what their salary cannot. What they do is to ask for bribes from the citizen if this citizen does not want to get a ticket for committing an infraction, which usually is a bigger quantity than the bribe. Or, as in many cases, the police officer will invent an infraction and then demand a specific amount of money if the citizen wants to avoid any further harassment or undeserving fines. As a result of this, many if not all Peruvians have lack of respect towards police officers, especially police men. The well known Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, presented a survey in that it questioned its readers if asked to evaluate the PNP based on the scale level 0 to 20 (0 being corrupt and 20 honorable), what grade they would give. The majority avoided to give a grade. However, from their response,s it seemed clear that most of the commentators gave a grade between 0 and 10. An example of a grade 0 was given by a commentator named Maggie.

“I would give them a ‘0”. They are all corrupt, as soon as one falls in their claws, they are looking for ways to generate fear [in the citizen in order] to “do a favor” in exchange of an economic compensation. They all simply are corrupt” (El Comercio).

As seen in this example, many Peruvians are dissatisfied with the service provided by police officers. It might be said that they are thieves dressed as police agents.

In addition, Public transportation is used as an ATM machine where many corrupt officers get their extra cash from. Transit police officers, usually will utilize their knowledge on transportation laws to manipulate situations, harass people by demanding money, or invent stories to collect bribes from innocents such as a local or a tourist. Here are two examples where police officers demanded money from a local for doing her a “favor” and from a tourist for no apparent reason .

“Many years ago my wallet was stolen from a car. I told the story to a police man whom I stopped, but he said that it was not his area because he was between the limit of Barranco and Surco, so I went to the police station. There, I had to pay a fee in order to make a report, but if I did not have a wallet how could I do it? While I was doing this, there was a police man outside asking my sister for our phone number [which she gave to him].We went back to the house and in less than 15 minutes the police man called. We agreed to meet in a park. However, in order to give us the wallet back we had to pay the thief and then the police man. My dad paid them” (El Comercio).

“I had the same trouble [with corrupt police officers when] riding south to Lima, starting around 150 miles north of Lima, ending about 50 miles north of Lima. I[t] was several times. Each time the cops demanded $200. Each time I rode away, the cops would call the next town's cops, and they would be waiting for me. Earlier that day I'd met a German (on an old airhead with a side car) that he'd been forced to pay $200” (Horizon Unlimited).

These two examples represent the day to day abuses that many crooked police officers commit during their work hours in Peru. After reading this, it is then understandable the fear and lack of trust that Peruvian citizens have towards them. It also re-states the great need of intervention from government officials to stop such abuses.

Similarly, by allowing bribes, police officers are not only being corrupt for accepting or demanding bribes, but they are also putting the lives of others at risk when doing so. This means that in order to get a bribe from a person an police officer has to let slide a violation of a law. Therefore, when an individual infringes a law related to traffic infractions, the risk is very high because he or she might be responsible of many lives such as passengers’.


To illustrate, many bus drivers have expired bus licenses, drive in overcrowded vehicles, excess speed limit, among others. Nonetheless, as many drivers know, police officers will accept bribes in order to save themselves from a fine. The image on the right shows the moment when a van driver gives 10 soles (about 3 U.S. dollars) to a police officer to solve a traffic infraction (Andre).The fact that these violations exist and happen during the day light, leave the public with a hunger for a radical change from the PNP.

There are also different levels of corruption. One of them is between the sexes. This is to say that corruption might or might not take place depending on the police officer’s sex. In general, Peruvian citizens would agree that police women are not corrupted whereas police men are. Indeed, “it was decided that all male traffic cops would be reassigned to desk jobs, and the streets would be run by women [because] the majority don’t ask for bribes and when offered they refuse them. And rather than letting people off with warnings, they are far stricter with drivers who commit crimes like running red lights or driving under the influence” (En Peru). However, the only problem seen from this decision is that although it is a great strategy to create a safer and trusted atmosphere on the streets of Peru, police men are not being educated about the serious damage that corruption brings. Instead, it seems that the problem is being transferred to closed environments, where it might be harder to see abuses. The following image portrays a police woman guarding a busy street (Var Der Konig Eidechse). She represents authority and respect for the law that the previous image of the police man lacks.


The image on the left portrays a police woman guarding a busy street (Var Der Konig Eidechse). She represents authority and respect for the law that the previous image of the police man lacks.

The second outraging difference regarding the levels of corruption is seen between Latin-American countries. The article “Corruption Victimization by the Police” by Diana Orces indicates that“ [c]ountries such as Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico continue to demonstrate the highest percentages of corruption victimization by the police even after controlling for individual characteristics”; likewise,” over 15 percent of the population of Peru, Mexico and Argentina was demanded a bribe by the police” (Orces, 2). As a consequence of these data, Peru's new Minister of the Interior, Mercedes Cabanillas affirmed that police corruption is one of the priority issues she would be dealing with (Ruiz). Also, Peru’s Ombudswoman, Beatriz Merino recommended, “ a public policy for the police force to eliminate bribery at police stations and stamp out mistreatment of the public” (Peruvian Times). Hopefully, both Cabanillas and Merino will work deliberately to help re-structure a system that has been long broken due to lack of importance and weakness from the Peruvian government.

To conclude, police corruption regarding traffic infractions in Peru is an ongoing issue that needs to be dealt with immediately. Although it is true that police officers are not provided with the basic needs to perform their duties and are not paid a fair salary, these conditions should not be excuses to abuse power over Peruvian citizens. It is, partly, on the police officers’ hands to set the example to their fellow citizens in order to decrease the existing corruption in the country. If they do this, they will re-gain the respect and trust they have long lost from their communities. But more importantly, it is the Peruvian government that needs to put a stop to corruption starting from their own offices in the National Palace.

Works Cited

Andre. Señores Combos. 2009. Photograph. Peru. El Café Expresso De La Avenida Cuatro. 29 Sept. 2009. Web. 8 Aug. 2010. .

Bananaman. "South and Central America and Mexico." Horizons Unlimited - THE Motorcycle Travel Site. 22 Aug. 2008. Web. 07 Aug. 2010. .

"Female Traffic Cops Rule the Streets of Lima." ...en Perú - Travel Culture History News. 7 Mar. 2009. Web. 08 Aug. 2010. .

Maggie. "Re: Sobre La Labor En Las Comisarías: ¿Qué Nota Le Pondría?" Web log comment. Debate Caliente. 21 Jan. 2009. Web. 8 Aug. 2010. .

Orces, Diana. Latin American Public Opinion Project, “Insights” Series. Corruption Victimization by the Police. USAID, Latin American Opinion Project, Americas Barometer, VanderBilt University, 2008. Web. 7 Aug. 2010. .

Paro Policial 05 De Abril. Post. Pavel2025. Perf. Richard Hernan Ortega Quispe. Paro Policial 05 De Abril. Youtube.com, 21 Mar. 2010. Web. 8 Aug. 2010. .

"Peru Ombudsman’s Office Recommends New Law to Improve Quality of Police Force." Peruvian Times. PERUVIANTIMES.COM, 29 May 2009. Web. 08 Aug. 2010. .

Ruiz, Israel. "Peru Minister to Battle Police Corruption by Reorganizing Entire Force." Living in Peru : Your Everyday Companion. 23 Feb. 2009. Web. 07 Aug. 2010. .

Sol. "Re: Sobre La Labor En Las Comisarías: ¿Qué Nota Le Pondría?" Web log comment. Debate Caliente. 21 Jan. 2009. Web. 7 Aug. 2010. .

Var Der Konig Eidechse, Bruno. Police Woman and Her Motobike. 2009. Photograph. Peru. En Peru. 7 Mar. 2009. Web. 8 Aug. 2010. .