Lawrence Sherman Professor in criminology from the University of Cambridge said in Montevideo that “the solution is more police, not more prisoners or prisons”. He also pointed out that most of the people who go to jail, are there for brief periods of time, and when they are released the have a higher tendency to commit crimes than they did before they went in.
International expert, Lawrence Sherman, professor in Criminology from the University of Cambridge, took part of "Convivencia urbana y seguridad ciudadana en el Uruguay"; a seminar held in Montevideo regarding urban living and safety in Uruguay. Interior Minister Eduardo Bonomi, Gabriel Frugoni head of OPP, Jorge Vazquez secretary of Interior and dean of the University of the Republic Rodrigo Arocena also took part of the seminar.
In his presentation, Sherman said that most people who end up in jail are there for brief periods of time and when they get out they have a higher tendency to commit crimes than before they went in. “if the prisons are full, we have to use the strengths and abilities of the police”, he also mentioned, that according to several studies, imprisoning juvenile delinquents results in an increase in the number of crimes the commit when released.
Sherman also, advised that we search for alternative modalities for young criminals, “for public good” and not “to save money on jails”. He gave an example of a model that is being used internationally called The Sword of Damocles, it consists in rehabilitating addicts, proceed to healing conferences with victims, define curfews (8:00pm) and transfer to a different community. According to the expert, this last alternative shows a decrease in the number of crimes that these young people commit since they are far away from the environments where they feel comfortable or are friendly to them, which is sometimes what promotes crime.
He also mentioned police corruption, and he said that it is necessary to have a police force for the country and police to control the police. If a police officer believed to be involved in an act of corruption, he suggest actions that monitor the person and taking actions such as “marking money” to detect if the person takes part in criminal activities. He defined this as a more effective way to dissuade this kind of behavior. “With this strategy against corruption more evidence is gathered, more people detained, etc. He explained that “eliminating police corruption is the way for the police to regain the people’s trust”.
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