JUSTICE TRENDS JUSTICE TRENDS Nr. 1 | June 2017 | Page 161

LATIN AMERICA / AMERICA LATINA
emiliano blanco
N at i o n a l D i r e c t o r o f t h e F e d e r a l P e n i t e n t i a ry S e r v i c e o f A r g e n t i n A
Director Nacional Servicio Penitenciario Federal de Argentina
ARGENTINA:
improving the penitentiary system through the training of first line practitioners
mejorando el sistema penitenciario a través de la habilitación del personal de primera línea
JT: When you took office, your main concern/objective was public
safety, which you wanted to reach through lowering recidivism…
Which is the state of play of Argentina´s penitentiary system´s
reality?
EB: In Latin America, we work with a social reintegration rationale,
that is to say, this is set from a normative vision: everyone, under
a given treatment, reaches a better readjustment, weighing, above
all, variables that prioritize work and education. We lay the work
on empiric evidence, and what we have done is to develop and
apply a risk scheme in terms of recidivism reduction. We have
worked on the guidelines from a criminological point of view, with
two clear management objectives: one being the public safety and
the other the reduction of recidivism.
The first measure which we have advanced on with is our own
initial risk classification system. That is to say, we worked with our
team to define the static variables (criminal backgrounds, motives
to commit a crime, the severity of offenses) and the dynamics of
all the inmates, in a context where this kind of information on
the static variables of the inmates did not exist, much less on the
dynamic ones. A criminological research was done in which all the
inmates of the system were interviewed for classification by risk.
This raised the need to re–categorize the penitentiary establishments
from a security and insurance perspective: prevention of escapes,
prevention of suicides and with the focus on potential for conflict.
At the same time, we also dealt with a survey of all procedural
security questions, both dynamic and physic, and we reappraised
the categorization concepts. Currently, we are in the phase of
reassigning each establishment according to this classification,
which implies the reallocation and development of programs for
specific treatment – for example, sexual offenders or murderers.
Likewise, various programs of approach for special needs groups,
(like, among others, mothers with children, LGTB, elderly, young
adults, and other), according to their needs and risks.
JT: Cuando tomó posesión, su principal preocupación /
objetivo era la seguridad pública, a la que quería alcanzar
a través de la reducción de la reincidencia…
¿Cuál es el estado de avance de la realidad del sistema
penitenciario argentino?
EB: En Latinoamérica y sobre todo en Argentina se trabaja más
con una lógi