Overcrowding in police stations is a situation that keeps authorities throughout the country on alert and Cali is no exception, so much so that the city representative, Gerardo Mendoza, reported last month that overcrowding reached 700 %, so urgent measures are needed.
Due to the urgency that this situation represents, the Secretariat of Security and Justice of Cali has held conversations with the Ministry of Justice in order to review possible solutions and determine if a project to adapt or construct a detention center is more viable. transient. In the same way, contacts are being made with Public Private Agencies to make the project viable, in the same way that the district prison project would be carried out, explained the undersecretary of access to Justice, Luis Eduardo Varela.
It should be noted that, although the previous Municipal Administration planned to design a prison center, it did not make progress in the four years because they did not have a lot that responded to the technical characteristics required for the construction of this infrastructure. .
According to data from the Cali Personería, on June 20, the 20 police stations in the city were overcrowded, Desepaz being the most affected with 97 detainees and a capacity for 9. This is followed by the La Floresta station, where there are currently 121 prisoners, however, its capacity is to house 6 people and in Terrón Colorado The station has capacity for 3 detainees, but currently has 41.
Another of the actions that are being carried out by the municipal Administration is the processing of the inter-administrative agreement between the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute, Inpec, and the Mayor’s Office, “which will allow us to meet the needs of the population deprived of liberty with a measure of ensuring preventive detention and transfer some of the people deprived of liberty who are in Police stations and URI to law enforcement detention establishments.” national”, Varela stated.
The importance of this agreement lies in the fact that it will allow the decongestion of Police stations that currently remain overcrowded. According to the expert consulted by El País, this is an important action, because keeping detainees in police stations can be a challenge for security.
