ECUADOR’S President Guillermo Lasso announced yesterday that some 5,000 prisoners would be pardoned to reduce overcrowding in the country’s prisons, which were hit with riots that left more than 320 inmates dead last year.

“I hope that at least 5,000 people deprived of their freedom will be released,” the president told reporters.

He said he aimed “to end overcrowding by the end of the year and thus have a much more favourable environment for security and for social rehabilitation inside the prisons”.

Ecuador’s 65 prisons have capacity for 30,000 inmates but house some 39,000, equivalent to 30% overcrowding. 

Some 15,000 of the prisoners have not been sentenced.

More than 320 inmates were killed last year in a surge of violence blamed on fighting between rival drug groups in Ecuador, nestled between the world’s biggest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru.

Lasso signed a decree on Monday to establish the conditions and system for pardons.

The effort will target prisoners charged with theft, fraud or breach of trust, local media reported. – AFP, February 23, 2022.