translated from Spanish: Announce gradual protocol for return of family visits to prisons

A progressive return of family members’ face-to-face visits to the country’s prison compounds announced on Monday the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Hernán Larraín, during the commemoration ceremony of gendarmerie’s 90th birthday.” Aware of the sacrifice that this meant and addressed the good outcome of prevention and control measures, we are pleased to announce that it is possible to return family visits to criminal compounds,” the Secretary of State said, “And then the ministerial authority added: “I would like here to emphasize that this plan was made with the support of the Ministry of Health, the Medical College of Health, the Medical College , the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile and the Department of Health of Gendarmerie of Chile.” With them we first work on a strategy to tackle the Covid-19, and now, thanks to strong institutional discipline, the way this year has been worked on, and with strong technical support behind it, is that it allows us to announce, with great satisfaction, that by Christmas, we expect all inmates, where this is possible, for quarantine reasons and gradually , they will be able to visit their loved ones,” he said. Finally, he explained that this plan “should be done gradually, respecting quarantines and strictly according to protocol. And we move forward because it is a human right of the inmates, which we must fulfill with a lot of responsibility. That is why behind there is a protocol, which regulates all the health and safeguard measures to be observed in this process.” We cannot neglect ourselves and we must remain alert against Covid-19, with the only aim of taking care of and protecting the health, both gendarmerie officials and persons deprived of their liberty,” added Larraín, who was in the company of the undersecretary of justice, Sebastián Valenzuela, and the national director of Gendarmerie, Christian Alveal.Commemoration of the 90 years Minister Hernán Larraín valued what Gendarmerie did in these 90 years , emphasizing what happened during the last period because of the advance of the pandemic and its effects on both officials and the criminal population. It also recalled the 20-year Criminal Procedural Reform of its implementation and Gendarmerie’s role in the proper functioning of the system. Finally, he underlined the role that each gendarme has in safeguarding and guarding those deprived of their liberty, but at the same time stressed that officials must also operate as “agents of social reintegration”, with the obligation to promote the return to society of those serving time.

Original source in Spanish