The congestion rate in all the jail facilities under the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) went down by 367 percent, the agency disclosed on Sunday, April 16.
BJMP spokesperson Jail Chief Inspector Jayrex Bustienera said the previous congestion rate was at 600 percent, especially at the peak of the anti-illegal drugs campaign of the Duterte administration in 2018.
Bustienera attributed the significant decrease in the number of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) in the bureau’s-manned jails to the release of qualified PDLs, construction of new jail facilities and paralegal services.
Currently, about 126,000 PDLs are packed inside the 478 jail facilities nationwide under the supervision of the BJMP.
Bustinera explained that previously six PDLs occupy a space supposedly designed for only one but now three to four inmates are now placed in the portion for one PDL.
He noted that the BJMP is intensifying the repair and construction of larger jail facilities with the assistance of the different local government units (LGUs).
Earlier the BJMP launched a library educational program which seeks to encourage and provide its PDLs the opportunity to engage in learning activities.
Initially, 13 BJMP jail facilities were chosen to implement the program due to budgetary constraints.
The BJMP noted that the plan is to implement the PDL educational learning program in libraries in all of the BJMP-supervised jail facilities in the country.
Dubbed as the “Read Your Way Out: Advancing Prison Reform through Libraries for Lifelong Learning in Places of Detention”, the program was made in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC.
In an earlier statement, the BJMP explained that the project will support the creation of new jail libraries and the provision of books and equipment, with the overall aim to provide learning opportunities for personal development, well-being, and, ultimately, rehabilitation of persons deprived of liberty (PDL).
The BJMP also noted that it aims to incorporate reading activities as one of the options for the PDLs to earn Time Allowance for Study, Teaching, and Mentoring (TASTM).
The TASTM reduces the time of sentences of the PDLs thereby facilitating the jail decongestion, through early release coupled with rehabilitation grounded in improved education and vocational skills.
“Jail libraries shall be composed of 20 percent legal resources, 30 percent vocational resources, 40 percent fiction and non-fiction and 10 percent children books for family visitors,’’ the BJMP noted.
To implement the said project, a technical working group (TWG) was constituted composed of officials from the BJMP and the UNODC with the National Library of the Philippines (NLP) also included as part of the group for the purposes of providing their technical expertise in terms of library management.
The creation of libraries in jails and prisons is inspired by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which ensures the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.
The same is reiterated by the Nelson Mandela Rules, in rule 64 which specifically says that every prison shall have a library for the use of all categories of prisoners, adequately stocked with both recreational and instructional books and prisoners shall be encouraged to make full use of it.