María Jimena Monsalve, National Criminal Enforcement Judge of the city of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentine Association of Criminal Justice Execution, participated on July 9, in the Batán prison, more precisely in the Liberté territory belonging to the work cooperative of the same name and self-management, (carried out entirely by prisoners) of the meeting of judges, under the title of "Guarantees of Independence".
The magistrate was approached by the press of this space and she said the following:
Very happy to have spent such a beautiful day, to have seen everything that Liberté has achieved, we just got out of the box and saw each other in person and above all realized that there is an alternative, a different way of living even in the context of confinement or in a prison context, Liberté is a great example of that.
I would say to all the judges, and justice operators, that Liberté is an experience that deserves to be lived, that you have to come and see how you can, for example, have the possibility of buying in a store, of completely self-manage all the activities that are done in the space.
It is a space exclusively managed by prisoners and that works, with a lot of elements that make a difference and that should not really, in any way be excluded or prohibited in our prisons, our systems, it is already understanding how important it is to be able to access, for example, to have an ice cream, to drink a soft drink, to sit down with a colleague to chat, to know how to take responsibility, to have a self-management system with which they invoice, market the products accordingly, the workshops, the garden project, the of beekeeping, they are really all hopeful cases of self-management, that is the most incredible thing.
I believe that the most difficult thing at this time, and in the Penitentiary Service of the province of Buenos Aires, more, above all, is to find a way to counteract the serious problem of overcrowding and the conditions in which a person has to go through a sentence.
And the truth is that it has arisen from self-government and from the decision of all this number of people and this impressive team of people working for and to be better, to live better, to feel worthy, to be able to wait for their children, their daughters, with a pizza, all things that are not bad at all.
It is unthinkable that this is not included, it is not banal, it is life itself with its little activated moments, to which one must cling without a doubt in order to go through, how difficult the deprivation of liberty is, and then anyone who believes that this is a banality is wrong.
Source: Liberté Press