Over-congestion has always been the primary challenge of jails in the Philippines.
Life in city, municipal, provincial jails and penitentiaries are brutalized by overcrowding.
Overcrowding poses a threat to both human life and health. It spreads illnesses, undermines authority, and heightens tensions. According to persons behind bars, prison is like a living death because of the constant competition for oxygen and space.
The program strengthened the access to justice of detainees through jail decongestion, capacity building, coordination, and knowledge sharing by promoting the detainees’ right to liberty, health, and reformation. It has also established programs in legal aid clinics and enhanced the abilities of law students to conduct and facilitate the program’s activities.
The program provided successful interventions to its released persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) by direct and indirect assistance through case follow-ups, consultations, and paralegal and human rights training.
The program’s case consultations to PDLs provided speedy, efficient, and successful case interventions as well as gain important insights into their needs and difficulties. These activities also provided much-needed human interaction that paved the way to the two core principles that the team wanted to leave: Pag-asa at Pagbabago.
The program also provided welfare missions that addressed the psychosocial needs and physical well-being of the inmates, and the corresponding dynamics in prison settings, as well as social care and assistance including early detection of mental health concerns.
PDLs, duty-bearers, and community volunteers were capacitated to uphold the rights of the PDLs by raising awareness and empowering them with knowledge of important laws and processes through paralegal training. Many of the trained PLAides have testified that they found a new purpose by serving their fellow PDLs and have attributed many releases due to their efforts as paralegal aides.
The program has empowered legal aid clinics as host organizations in regional areas and cities willing to convene Task Force Katarungan at Kalayaan (TFKK) activities and Justice Zone activities.
HLAF’s good relationships with partner jails and extending goodwill through initiatives have created opportunities to donate equipment and supplies from different local and international partners and stakeholders.
Highlights
- The passage and Usage of OCA Circular 201-2022 signifies a significant milestone. Through this circular, the Jail Decongestion Team’s goals are for a just and humane justice system. The effect of this circular allows jail units to release prisoners who have served their sentence without requiring them to ask the courts for release orders. In just a few months, thousands of PDLs (more than 7,000) across the country benefitted from this effort and allowed them the opportunity to return home and begin their process of integration with their friends, families, and communities
- The ABA-ROLI and TAF partnerships allowed more students and civil services organizations to directly participate with jail units and PDLs and allows them the opportunity to adopt jail units for their respective jail decongestion programs. Among the most successful partnerships are those with partner law schools that have significantly contributed to their respective local jails.
- The team also has significantly increased the reach of their activities. Although the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult at first, the JD team was still able to capitalize on the opportunities brought by emerging technology and adapt to the situation. In fact, they fear that the COVID-19 pandemic would make it more difficult to conduct Jail Decongestion activities but the team’s results show that they were able to help more people than they did in the past when they were confined to face-to-face activities.
- Access to the provincial jails has been difficult in the past years but because of the word-of-mouth reputation as well as the long list of accomplishments of HLAF and the team, more provincial jail units have benefitted from the Jail Decongestion activities of the organization.
- Another significant success of the team is the partnership and cooperation with the CHR. They have shared that because of the JD team, they began to rebrand their image as a cooperative partner rather than a hostile adversary which led to better coordination efforts between the different government agencies and a better understanding of the shared duty to safeguard the rights and welfare of PDLs under their care.
- The Jail Decongestion brand is also becoming well known among the judges and justices in the country as evidenced by the special mention of the HLAF and their activities during TFKK and Justice Zone meetings. Duty bearers also recognize the significance of the excellent training from the team that they are inundated with numerous requests they could hardly commit to due to manpower and resource limitations.
