Nueva Canarias Lanzarote will demand before the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, that the referrals of "highly dangerous" prisoners to the Tahíche Penitentiary Center cease. This was announced by the group after holding a meeting with the Association of Bodies of the Penitentiary Institutions Administration (Acaip), in which they were able to hear firsthand "the stressful situation that officials are suffering from due to the lack of material and human resources to cope with the number of inmates that currently exists."
"The dangerous situation is aggravated by receiving dangerous prisoners from the prisons of Tenerife and Gran Canaria," it is added. In this regard, it is pointed out that, according to Acaip, these referrals are being made under the protection of a lifting of Article 72 of the Prison Regulations, which empowers them, once the 1st degree has passed, to transfer them to another minor prison." For NC, the Lanzarote prison "is not prepared for this type of prisoner."
"Architecturally, it has seven normal living modules; a nursing home; an income module; and an isolation module. Ten modules that, compared to the 20 of Las Palmas II, seem insufficient for the human pressure that is exerted. A normal prison maintains 74 cells per module occupied by one or two inmates. In the case of Lanzarote, the maximum they have is 37 spread over two modules," they detail from the party.
That is why Armando Santana, municipal secretary of NC in Arrecife and councilor in the Arrecife City Council, expresses that "it is incomprehensible how dangerous prisoners continue to be transferred to Lanzarote, knowing the few conditions that the prison maintains." In addition, he points out that "these inmates have no family ties on the island." Therefore, he considers that "they can be transferred to other more adapted prisons."
According to NC in a press release, "since the new facilities of the Lanzarote Penitentiary Center were inaugurated seven years ago, transfers of this type of inmate have not stopped, reaching about 20 highly dangerous inmates at this time." "These maintain attitudes that escape the control of officials, such as death threats, assaults and harassment. The center has 14 on-duty officials, an insufficient number if one takes into account that there are sick leaves and vacations.
To this situation, it is added that "the prisoners of Moroccan nationality are added." "According to officials, the number of pateras has increased the number of inmates of this nationality, which would be around fifty. Apparently, these inmates coordinate to commit crimes in the same prison, causing control and security problems," it is stated in this regard.
Thus, Nueva Canarias, through its deputy in Congress, Pedro Quevedo, will appeal to the Minister of the Interior "to put a solution to this serious situation that is being suffered in the Lanzarote Penitentiary Center, all in order to ensure the physical and psychological integrity of the workers and prisoners who live in it."
