Prisons Remain Overcrowded

27 April 2011

Maputo — Mozambican prisons are currently holding more than twice the number of inmates they were built for, according to the country’s Attorney-General, Augusto Paulino.

Presenting his annual report to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Paulino said that, on 31 December last year, there were 15,303 people incarcerated in the country’s jails. But the installed capacity of the jails is for only 6,674 prisoners.

He said that matters had recently been made worse by throwing illegal immigrants into the prisons “worsening the food and sanitation situation”.

Of the 15,303 December inmates, 10,283 (67.2 per cent) were serving sentences, and 5,020 (32.8 per cent) were on remand, awaiting trial. This is a great improvement on the situation several years ago, when the great majority of prisoners were pre-trial detainees.

The majority of those serving sentences – 5,491 – were petty offenders given jail terms of up to two years. Only 4,792 prisoners were serving sentences longer than two years.

These figures point to the need for a law allowing courts to impose sentences other than imprisonment. Paulino called for the use of penalties such as fines and community services instead of imprisonment.

“I am convinced that these measures can contribute to reducing the prison population, and improve health and hygiene conditions”, he stressed.

Paulino also warned of the “critical situation” of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC). The resources allocated to PIC did not allow it to carry out efficiently its main task of assisting the prosecution services. PIC needed more premises of its own, and vehicles that would allow it to reach crime scenes in good time.

“The action of PIC is our sure rearguard in the fight against crime, through competent investigation”, he said. “If crime is not investigated and repressed, if suspects are systematically released for lack of the evidence that PIC should collect, then it’s not worth arresting them in the first place”.

But a Criminal Investigation Police that was well trained and equipped would be “an instrument to dissuade criminals and one that would deserve the trust of the people”.

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