Trade Unions against privatization of juvenile penal system in Uruguay

Montevideo, Dec 22 (Prensa Latina) The vice president of the Uruguayan trade union federation Pit-Cnt, Joselo López, denounced on Wednesday the political intention to privatize the National Institute of Adolescent Social Integration (Inisa, in Spanish).

Lopez assured that “all the chaos” generated in reclusion centers is not only due to the authorities’ incapacity to manage such centers, but also to the fact that the ruling Cabildo party, to which Inisa’s president Rossana de Olivera belongs to, “seeks to privatize the juvenile penal system”.

Inisa directors and the head of the Ministry of Social Development (Mides), Martín Lema, were summoned by the Chamber of Deputies to a special hearing to explain why the centers’ management is being criticized.

The session was urgently called off after violent incidents were reported in two of the rehabilitation centers, with one young man injured and another escaped.

To confirm the accusations of the union leader, Cabildo deputies Eduardo Lust and Álvaro Perrone openly advocated closing Inisa and hiring private companies to take charge of the juvenile centers.