Gendarmería seeks to create new video call rooms in the Valparaíso Penitentiary Complex.
During the first six days of this month, the Gendarmerie has transported 119 people deprived of liberty to a court in the region. With the aim of reducing this transfer of inmates and adopting other measures to strengthen security in justice centers, the regional operational chief, Lieutenant Colonel Claudio Ponce Medina, has held various meetings with judges in the area.
The last conversation held by the operational head was in the Guarantee Court of Viña del Mar. The instance was chaired by the presiding judge of the committee of judges, Loreto León. In addition, officials from the court and the Special Penitentiary Services Unit (USEP) of Valparaíso participated in the instance, the entity in charge, mainly, of transfers from the Buenos Aires penitentiary establishment.
The relevance of the implementation of the initiatives proposed by both parties was highlighted by Lieutenant Colonel Ponce.
“Within the framework of the permanent review of our security procedures, which we carry out on a daily basis in the different courts of the Valparaíso region, a coordination meeting was held, seeking with this action to carry out joint strategies that allow us to develop in better ways the different tasks that are carried out by our Institution, as an auxiliary body of justice, among which we can point out the transfer of those deprived of liberty to the different hearings, actions that, without a doubt, must be executed with strict protocols of security”.
“The aim is to increase the holding of hearings electronically, which aim to reduce the number of inmates leaving our penal units and thus reduce possible risks involved in these types of procedures. Even more so with the different criminal phenomena that are currently present in our country,” the officer added.
On the occasion, the magistrate made herself available to advance issues that benefit both institutions.
“A work meeting, where we have raised the various difficult points of management, critical knots that we have had in management and we have been able to reach certain agreements that we are going to implement little by little, but always considering, on the one hand, the better administration of justice, the security of our court and, by the way, the better function of the Gendarmerie as well.”
Gendarmerie personnel are working to find spaces that can house new video call rooms in the Valparaíso Penitentiary Complex, a penal unit that at the regional level concentrates just over 50 percent of transfers.
