Another Guayaquil prison massacre sparks charges, counter-charges between Lasso and the high court
CuencaHighLifeNov 14, 2021
On Wednesday, Ecuador's police said they had recovered 11 bodies and 29 body parts as part of an ongoing forensic effort at the Penitenciaria del Litoral prison to determine the official death toll. The news comes after clashes occurred between rival gangs in the prison over the weekend.
Authorities have confirmed that 31 inmates were killed at the overcrowded facility in the port city of Guayaquil, with officers seizing nine rifles, a grenade launcher, four pistols, two revolvers, and a thousand rounds of ammunition.
Ecuador's Constitutional Court has repeatedly undermined Pres. Guillermo Lasso's ability to curb prison violence. From barring the military from operating in prisons to enabling the early release of certain prisoners and rulings preventing guards from carrying weapons, the country's so-called judicial system has played a direct role in this ongoing violence.
While gangs play a fundamental role in prison violence in Ecuador, so does state violence, corruption, overcrowding, and lack of essential services, including wastewater treatment, medical attention, and legal advice. Without reforms to deal with these structural causes of prison violence, penitentiaries will continue operating as schools of criminality that offer their inmates neither rehabilitation nor reintegration.