The Special High Security Penitentiary (REPAS), the main high-security prison in Chile, located in the Centro de Justicia neighborhood in Santiago, has faced four unprecedented episodes of disorder and destruction of its facilities in less than a month, carried out by 18 inmates. Most of them are members of the Tren de Aragua, the transnational organized crime gang of Venezuelan origin that has been operating since approximately 2022 in the South American country. The leader of the first revolt, the main one on June 6, was Hernán Landaeta Garlotti, alias ‘Satanás’, accused of being a hitman for the organization and charged by the Chilean courts with several crimes, including extortionate kidnappings. That day, a group of six inmates managed to get out into the prison yard, broke a ping pong table, stuck out their legs and attacked the guards. Three inmates and 12 gendarmes were injured.
The last serious incident, which also involved members of Los Gallegos, a branch of the Tren de Aragua in Arica, the far north of the country, was on June 27, when one of the inmates destroyed the toilet in his cell, dug with his hands until he reached a pipe, entered through the shaft and with metal blows he managed to free six other inmates, who went out into the corridor. The episodes have brought a series of consequences, including the removal of its warden, Fabiola Valladares, replaced by Patricio Roa, who has already directed other prisons in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Puente Alto and Colina, and the head of the internal regime of REPAS. But fundamentally, it has forced Gendarmería, the prison service that depends on the Ministry of Justice, to push for new measures in a prison that was considered a model, the most secure in Chile, and in which never before, nor in any Chilean prison, had the infrastructure been destroyed.
The facility has a long history in Chile, as in 1996 four inmates staged a cinematic helicopter escape there. It was created 30 years ago and, until March 2023, when it was reopened by left-wing president Gabriel Boric and renamed REPAS, it was known as the High Security Prison (CAS). It is a prison that was built in 1994, initially, to house former subversives who took up arms against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and over the years it was adapted to house those convicted of terrorism, drug traffickers, robbers of large robberies and members of Chilean organized crime gangs. However, with the emergence of a new crime since 2022, some of its facilities and furniture have not resisted the attacks. This is despite the fact that it has unusual measures compared to other prisons, including the use of visiting rooms and surveillance cameras in all its sectors.
“A highly refractory behavior”
Part of the damage has been done in protest against the use of visiting rooms. In addition, inmates have complained that some of their relatives cannot enter, but the Gendarmerie has pointed out that, according to the regulations that govern all Chilean prisons, only people with documentation can enter as visitors.
For Boric’s Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, the incidents “force us to refocus penitentiary work given the profile of not only the organizations, but also the violence they have shown as a means of reaction. Therefore, protocols and structures must be adapted. Also, this reinforces a prison that, additionally, already had many reinforcements.”
He added to EL PAÍS: “This essentially forces the Chilean State to convey that people with this profile will serve long sentences. Therefore, these sentences must be served both in this facility and in others that the Chilean State decides to build for this type of organization. This case is exceptional and relevant because it allows us to focus and readjust protocol, infrastructure and specialized equipment for this type of profile in the penitentiary system.”
Following the events, Víctor Provoste Torres, acting director of the Gendarmerie, told this newspaper that, “clearly, we are dealing with inmates with a high level of criminal commitment and imprisoned for crimes of high public significance, who resent a system that limits their ability to organize and continue committing crimes from prison.” He added: “They are people with little or no appreciation for life, which is reflected in the way they relate to each other and also to the system, always resorting to violence as the only way to achieve their objectives, which largely explains this highly refractory behavior.”
According to Provoste, despite the commotion caused by the incident on June 6 and the three that followed, these events “cannot be categorized as a riot, since at no time did the inmates take control of the establishment or a strategic space within it.”
Criminologists, sociologists and psychologists
Following the unprecedented destruction, and faced with a new profile of inmates (some had already escaped from Venezuelan prisons), in addition to the reinforcement of new security measures, a team of criminologists, sociologists, psychologists and Gendarmerie officers will observe for a period the behavior of those deprived of liberty in the REPAS.
The prison has individual cells, each with three small bulletproof windows. In addition, as Torres explains, it is a “much more severe and strict regime than in any other prison in the country. And that, clearly, is impacting this type of prison population, who will try by all means to violate or affect its normal functioning.”
Following the damage, the Gendarmerie filed four complaints. One of them, for the last incident on June 27, was under the State Internal Security Law, a legislation that implies that, in the case of convictions, the penalties are higher because they involve crimes against public order. It is a legal action that includes the facts of the three previous libels, among them, the death threats from an inmate to the REPAS guards.
Provoste explains that, in parallel to the legal process “so that these acts do not go unpunished”, security measures have been gradually intensified, “specifically to limit the actions of these people, in some cases and very punctually, through the use of coercive elements, with due protection of human rights. In this way, the aim is to reduce their mobility and thus minimize the risk of threatening their own lives, other inmates and staff, also reducing the risk of further destruction and damage to the infrastructure.” He adds that the relocation of inmates within the same facility has also been decided, which, “along with being a disciplinary measure, allows progress to be made with the plan to repair the damaged cells.”
In February, REPAS was in the middle of a controversy after Santiago judge Daniel Urrutia authorized a group of inmates from the Aragua Train to make video calls to their families, in circumstances where the high-security prison only allows visits through visiting rooms since it was reopened by President Boric. The judge had also allowed a drug trafficker of Colombian origin to have intimate visits with his partner. But the Gendarmerie challenged the measure and in March the Santiago Court of Appeals overturned his decision.
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