Africa-Press – Angola. The director general of Penitentiary Services, head prison commissioner Bernardo Pereira Gourgel, expressed, Wednesday (9), in Mbanza Kongo, Zaire, the urgent need to build new prisons in the province.
According to the official, the two prisons available in Zaire, Nkiende, in the municipality of Mbanza Kongo, and Mangue Grande (Soyo), are already in an advanced state of degradation and unable to respond. to prison demand.
He therefore suggested the inclusion of projects for the construction of new prisons in the next package of the Integrated Plan for Intervention in Municipalities (PIIM) in the region. The official, who has been in Zaire since Tuesday for a four-day working day, explained that the direction suggests the deactivation of the current prison units, but for that it is urgent to create new ones. He also referred to the phenomenon of overcrowding in the two structures, whose penal population is above 470 individuals. The installed capacity of the Nkiende prison is 250 prisoners, while that of Mangue Grande (220), both in operation since 2010.
“The overcrowding of the jails is a phenomenon that is registered in almost the entire country”, he lamented, for those who go to the local judicial authorities to learn about the ongoing efforts to reduce cases of excessive preventive detention.
He also considered as difficulties the lack of conditions for the technical-professional training of inmates. The Nkiende penitentiary unit is 30 kilometers from the city of Mbanza Kongo.
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