The challenge that organized crime poses to the prison system

Among the multiple challenges facing the Chilean prison system, one of the main issues is overcrowding. However, addressing only the problem of existing space and overpopulation overlooks an equally important challenge: the impact of organized crime within prisons and how they are used as operational centers to control criminal activities conducted by groups outside the facilities.

In this regard, Latin America has a long history of powerful criminal groups that have emerged within the penitentiary system and expanded into the world. This is largely due to poor prison policy. Therefore, in Chile, the construction of new facilities must be accompanied by an effective incarceration policy that includes rehabilitation and cessation of criminal activities.

Organized crime and the prison: The experience of Brazil

By the end of the 20th century, two of Brazil’s largest organized crime groups emerged within its prison system: the First Command of the Capital (PCC) and the Red Command (CV). The penitentiary facilities of the South American giant have been the place where organized crime emerges, grows, and develops, stated Professor Thiago Rodrigues from the Federal Fluminense University of Rio de Janeiro at a recent seminar organized by AthenaLab.

For these organizations, the prison operates as a corporate building of crime, a facility where they control territories, even beyond national borders. Thanks to the ability to recruit “soldiers” and develop true joint ventures between criminal groups, major drug cartels establish themselves in various countries. In fact, according to Rodrigues’ research, individuals linked to the PCC have already been identified in Spanish, Portuguese, and French prisons.

Therefore, the penitentiary system is a breeding ground for South American organized crime, a view shared by expert Douglas Farah, who highlights that, alongside Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela are other places where control of territory is achieved from within the prison and the illicit business is exported.

In this context, one of the key lessons in combating prison organized crime, according to Rodrigues, relates to a repressive policy based on mass incarceration that is poorly executed.

The professor explained at the seminar “Chile Facing Latin American Organized Crime: Challenges and Lessons Learned” that in Brazil, mass incarceration of former guerrillas in the early 1990s led these inmates to evolve into drug trafficking cartels. Each new inmate became a potential recruit as a result of a policy that sought only to incarcerate without segregation or rehabilitation.

When a cartel is born in prison, it not only turns the facility into its operational center but also becomes a place where it can obtain labor. Marginalized and radicalized youth become “soldiers,” and the “punitive populism” that proposes tough measures, including mass arrests, ultimately expands criminal networks rather than dismantling them from within. Rodrigues argues that “merely repressive solutions are simple answers to complex problems: they seduce public opinion, are useful as political discourse, but are inefficient and exacerbate organized crime.”

The prison must be the last link in the security chain and must fulfill its objective of deterring crime. However, this requires effective prison policies, that is, limiting communications, preventing criminogenic contagion, rehabilitating those who meet the conditions for it, and isolating cartel leaders, among other things.

The challenges of Chile’s prison reality in the face of organized crime

While Professor Rodrigues used the Brazilian case to explain the problem, the reality is that this situation is not so distant from the Chilean context. Today, several prisons in the country house members of transnational cartels. The lack of space and overcrowding become an opportunity to infiltrate the facilities and do what they do best: control territory from within the prison. Therefore, Rodrigues warned that if Chile is alert to the advance of groups like the PCC, it should be working to resolve the prison problem because, as seen in other countries, Brazilian criminals have no difficulty connecting with local or foreign groups already established in order to insert key individuals within the prisons to expand the business.

A matter of concern for Chile relates to the place where Brazilian criminal groups meet Venezuelan offenders. In northern Brazil, the Tren de Aragua has begun to interact with local groups and also with the only truly transnational group in that country: the First Command of the Capital.

In this sense, looking at the problem from Chile, the relationship between the Tren de Aragua and the PCC could mean that the Brazilian criminal giant does not need to reach Chile to utilize its infrastructure; it is sufficient to generate agreements with criminals already present in the country.

With a 140.5% capacity utilization in 24-hour regimes[1], the country’s prisons face an evident space problem, which translates into an opportunity to recruit, subjugate, and develop illicit markets within these facilities. 60.6% of the penal population in Chile is held in a 24-hour regime[2]. In this context, a diverse catalog of crimes leads to inmates of different categories coexisting daily, learning from the more experienced, and diminishing their chances of reintegration.

The largest number of inmates is in the age range of 20 to 49 years[3], with men predominating over women, and younger individuals become recruitable labor if a criminal leader from an organized group is detained in the prison.

The evolution of the foreign penal population between 2022 and 2024 could provide relevant information about the advance of Latin American organized crime in Chile. Among foreigners, Bolivians, Colombians, and Venezuelans occupy the top three spots. Venezuelans have seen the most significant growth, with a 98% increase between 2022 and 2024, displacing Bolivians from second place. Colombians remain the primary nationality recorded, nearly matched by Venezuelans[4].

Graph 1: Evolution of the Colombian, Bolivian, and Venezuelan populations in the Chilean penitentiary system, 2022-2024

Source: Gendarmería de Chile, Penitentiary Statistics at: https://www.gendarmeria.gob.cl

This can be explained by the consolidation of various Tren de Aragua cells, such as Los Gallegos, El Tren del Coro, and Los Piratas, which operate in Chile and already have significant leaders detained, such as alias “Estrella,” one of the leaders of Los Gallegos. Furthermore, considering that the Tren de Aragua is a criminal group that is born and grows within the Tocorón prison in Venezuela, incarceration in Chile would not pose a problem for continuing to exercise the territorial control they have consolidated through human trafficking for sexual exploitation, among other crimes.

The challenge that this reality poses to the Chilean state relates to the fact that our penitentiary system lacks the necessary characteristics to develop the effective prison policy that Rodrigues referred to in his presentation. Overcrowding hinders segregation and fosters criminogenic contagion. Additionally, it is observed that younger individuals are vulnerable to the advance of organized crime. Recruited as narco “soldiers” in marginalized areas of the country, due to a lack of opportunities and the absence of state responses, they experience a loss of belonging that they find in criminal groups. Hence, a significant number of inmates are observed in early adulthood.

Prison policy must be comprehensive. For the moment, common crime continues to predominate in the prison system overall, but this will not last long, and the more leaders of prison criminal groups arrive at our penitentiary facilities, the more they will tend to transform them into corporate buildings of crime, as has occurred in other countries in the region, unless appropriate measures are taken.

Reflections

A more thoughtfully designed prison policy can become a breeding ground for the consolidation of organized crime. Therefore, addressing the issue of space is one of many aspects that must be considered when designing a policy that transforms the prison into the last link in public safety.

In this regard, it is relevant to consider the following aspects:

• Having facilities that allow for proper management of inmates. That is, segregating the penal population to avoid criminogenic contagion; considering visiting areas, if the inmate’s quality allows it, that have specific controls to cut off communication networks with the outside; taking into account common areas and dormitories that allow for shifts to prevent contagion and inhibit communication between highly dangerous inmates.
• Proper management of the prison population that avoids mixing inmates of different qualities and protects guards to prevent extortion and threats.
• A good classification of inmates is essential to address a problem like organized crime. Additionally, the information obtained from within the prison allows for addressing crime outside, generating the necessary connections to focus the response.
• This classification also allows for identifying those who have the potential for rehabilitation and reintegration.
• This must necessarily be accompanied by actions that address the issues of corruption within Gendarmería and the weaknesses of the service. Elevating the level from a public service to a state institution is fundamental to addressing the above.
• Incarceration policies without strategy yield poor results. An example of this is the case of Brazil, from which Chile can draw lessons to address organized crime from all its dimensions.

Pilar Lizana

January 17, 2025

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[1] Gendarmería de Chile, Penitentiary Statistics, November 11, 2024.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.