JUSTICE TRENDS JUSTICE TRENDS Nr. 1 | June 2017 | Page 158

LATIN AMERICA / AMERICA LATINA
specific courses in penitentiary management and criminology.
The European Union has also given a great deal of support in
the field of infrastructures: we have created a maternal and child
sector, and an integral development center for the female inmates’
children, which is a model–center at the regional level.
Much support has come from Taiwan – through construction and
metal structures workshops – and also from the INL, of the United
States, and from the Italian government.
All of these are the ones who have been collaborating with the
penitentiary system in a sustainable and uninterrupted way since
2010.
JT: How do you see the future of the prison system of the
country?
RH: Our vision is that the system becomes a modern one as far
as technology, prison management and inmates’ treatment are
concerned. We are moving towards a safe and rehabilitating model.
According to our figures, more than a third of our population will
serve their sentence in the next seven years. That means that,
if we are also able to speed up the progressive regime, we can
contribute to the attainment of a less crowded system in which
management can become more sustainable. If we fail to reduce
the rate of overcrowding in the next few years, we are really going
to have a very compromised system.
The training of the new staff is a great challenge: there has been a
lot of corruption, but we must fight to change that culture through
maintaining the control, improving training and providing greater
opportunities to our staff in such a way that we are developing,
for the first time, the penitentiary career through an organized
system of promotions. //
JT: ¿Nos comenta, por favor, cuales son y qué papel desempeñan
las entidades de cooperación externa en la reforma del sistema
penitenciario salvadoreño?
RH: Son muy importantes. Tenemos muchísima cooperación
internacional, sobre todo de la AECID, la agencia española
de cooperación. Ellos nos han apoyado grandemente en
el relanzamiento de nuestra escuela penitenciaria, en la formación
de personal, con cursos especializados de gestión penitenciaria y
de criminología.
La Unión Europea también ha dado un apoyo grandísimo en el
ámbito de infraestructuras: creamos un sector materno infantil y
un centro de desarrollo integral para los niños de las privadas de
libertad; es un centro modelo a nivel regional. Mucho apoyo de
parte de Taiwán – con talleres de construcción y de estructuras
metálicas – y apoyo también de la INL, de los Estados Unidos, y
del gobierno Italiano.
Todos estos son los que han estado colaborando con el sistema
penitenciario de una forma sostenible e ininterrumpida desde el