The end of La Victoria has arrived: Technical lifting begins for its definitive closure

Santo Domingo. – On the way to putting an end to one of the darkest pages of democracy and the Dominican penitentiary system, the Government began the technical survey process that marks the beginning of the definitive closure of the La Victoria Penitentiary Center. The delegation was made up of engineers, architects, surveyors, infrastructure specialists, and electromechanical personnel who are part of the technical teams of the Presidential Office for Support of Penitentiary Reform (ONAPREP) and the Ministry of Housing and Buildings (MIVED), as well as representatives of the National Office of Seismic Evaluation and Vulnerability of Infrastructures and Buildings (ONESVIE). The delegation was received by officials from the Penitentiary System, who offered the corresponding explanations and guided the tour of the areas to be intervened, an evaluation that will allow identifying which structures are salvageable and which ones must be demolished, as part of an integral strategy that gives way to the definitive transformation of the penitentiary system.

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As a result of the uprising, the design of a new, smaller-scale penitentiary center is planned, intended exclusively for preventive inmates, under the standards of the reformed model. This center will be operated by civilian personnel trained by the Instituto Superior Especializado de Estudios Penitenciarios y Correccionales (INSEEPENC), formerly known as the Escuela Penitenciaria. This process coincides with the evaluation and future relocation of a segment of the internal population of La Victoria to the Las Parras Penitentiary Center, which is about to be inaugurated with a capacity for 2,400 inmates, which constitutes a decisive step to reduce overcrowding and the inhumane conditions that have historically characterized La Victoria. The beginning of this process represents a transcendental advance for the Dominican Republic on its path towards a stable penitentiary reform oriented towards rehabilitation, which leaves behind decades of insecurity, overcrowding, abandonment and systematic violations of the fundamental rights of persons deprived of liberty, as well as disrespect for victims, is the goal set as the main priority of the next Ministry of Justice.