ℹ️ Update (June 15, 2026): the start date has been rescheduled. The fifth cohort now begins on Saturday, July 25, 2026 (previously scheduled for June 27).
Enrollment is now open for the fifth cohort of the International Diploma in Building Citizen Security, a university extension program of the School of Social Work and Health Sciences of the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, coordinated by Universidad Liberté. The program is fully online and 100% subsidized through community support. Classes run from July 25 through December 6, 2026, with 108 contact hours across seven monthly synchronous sessions and weekly asynchronous practical activities. Enrollment capacity is 1,000 students, with possible expansion based on demand.
A proposal to rethink security through human dignity
The diploma challenges a prevailing paradigm: rethinking citizen security not through punishment, but through restorative justice, a gender perspective, an ethics of care, and human rights. It is a concrete commitment to examining — with theoretical tools and practical experience — what security means and what policies can build it without deepening inequalities.
"A critical and transformative program on restorative justice, sentence enforcement, gender perspective, and collective care. Designed to build security grounded in dignity, not punishment," states the official program description.
A pioneer in the right to education behind bars
The diploma was launched in 2021 with a feature unprecedented in the Spanish-speaking world: it was coordinated entirely from inside a maximum-security prison and 100% moderated by people in prison. The first edition proved that high-quality university education can be sustained behind bars, with rigorous academic curation and international participation.
Since then, four cohorts have brought together thousands of participants from 25 countries across Latin America and Europe, from very diverse backgrounds: law students, judges, lawyers, people in prison and recently released, teachers, social workers, journalists, and the general public. In 2026, the fifth edition opens.
Curriculum: six thematic areas
The curriculum is organized around six areas that address the central challenges of contemporary penal systems. Two of them — Restorative Justice and Gender — are also integrated transversally throughout the entire program:
- Restorative Justice (transversal): a path distinct from punishment, aimed at repairing harm and rebuilding bonds. Dialogue, acknowledgment, accountability, and care for those who suffered.
- Gender (transversal): facing gender inequalities inside and outside prison. Citizen security policies with a gender perspective, focused on protecting women and LGBTIQ+ people in prison.
- Mental Health and Family: incarceration destroys subjectivity and unravels family ties — partners, children, friendships. Mental health as a fundamental right.
- Work and Self-Management: work in prison must not be punishment or exploitation. Cooperative self-management, popular economy, food sovereignty.
- Education: education in prison is not a privilege or a temporary escape — it is a right, a commitment to oneself, a window to the world.
- Sentence Enforcement: reviewing how sentences are served from a human rights perspective. Alternatives that do not sever bonds or deepen exclusion.
International faculty
The program has 29 faculty members from Argentina, Peru, Spain, Colombia, and Ecuador. Among the prominent figures is Raúl Eugenio Zaffaroni, former Justice of the Argentine Supreme Court and a leading voice in Latin American criminal law. General coordination is led by Ricardo Augman and Dr. Diana Esther Márquez.
Open to everyone
No prior qualifications are required. The program is aimed at people in prison and recently released, crime victims, affected families and communities, prison staff, legal and mental health professionals, social workers, criminologists, teachers, students, and anyone interested in rethinking citizen security.
The methodology combines synchronous sessions via Zoom with a Virtual Campus, a YouTube channel, and Radio Liberté (online and FM). For people in prisons in the province of Buenos Aires where Universidad Liberté has a presence, sessions are also broadcast by FM radio and through University Student Centers — a concrete way of guaranteeing the right to education behind bars.
Endorsements and partnerships
The program is backed by a Latin American and European network of twelve organizations: the Argentine Federation of Credit Cooperatives (FACC), Víctimas por la Paz, the Argentine Association for Sentence Enforcement Justice (AAJEP), Corporación Activos por los Derechos Humanos, the Penitentiary and Human Rights Seminar of the University of Antioquia, Famílies de Presos a Catalunya, the Observatory of the Penal System and Human Rights (OSPDH) at the University of Barcelona, the Argentine Society of Restorative Justice, the Federation of Worker Cooperatives of Argentina, the Latin American Academy of Criminal and Penitentiary Law (ALDP), and the Brazilian Institute of Human Rights (IBDH).
More information and enrollment
Full details on the program, curriculum, and faculty are available on the official program page.
Enrollment is already open and is completed through the form on the program enrollment page. Inquiries can be sent by email to formacion@universidadliberte.org or via WhatsApp at +54 9 223 678-9264.
Participants who complete 75% of the sessions and submit practical activities receive a University Extension Diploma issued by the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, through the Extension Secretariat of the School of Social Work and Health Sciences (Resolution RS 103-33/24).
