A Turkish delegation arrived Thursday in Colombia to study how the country electronically surveys prisoners under house arrest, a program managed by the National Institute of Punishment and Imprisonment (INPEC).
The delegation, which includes a representative from Turkey’s Ministry of Justice and the Director General of the Prisons, want to study the monitoring system of inmates who wear electronic bracelets and are serving their sentences under house arrest.
Newspaper El Espectador wrote that it was “paradoxical” that a foreign delegation would want to study a system that has been harshly criticized for allowing 4,415 criminals to serve their sentences at home instead of in prison.
INPEC typically makes recommendation to judges over which prisoners should receive electronic bracelets and which should be sent to prison. However, these recommendations were not always followed, wrote El Espectador.
The Turkish visit was part of the Colombian Justice Ministry’s “program of international cooperation,” which aims to promote the exchange of prison management techniques between other countries.
