Last November 29, the new Penal Code and the Penal Execution Law came into force, which motivated the application of the retroactivity of the law, which means that what was just stipulated was applied to facts before its existence. For this reason, a number of those sanctioned were released from prison.
The most frequent crimes in this group were robbery with force and violence in a certain modality, and the illegal slaughter of large livestock when the animal was their own and receiving. At the same time, others who were being monitored by the enforcement judge had their sentences terminated.
The president of the Second Criminal Chamber of the Provincial Popular Court, Dayanai Justiz Batista, exchanged with 26. She explained that the integration of several dispersed norms allows the Law of Penal Execution to concentrate in one legal body all the issues inherent to the enforcement of the penalty.
From her words, we learned that there are provisions in this regard, in pursuit of comprehensive action, from the Governing Council of the Supreme People's Court, resolutions of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, regulations, and orders of the Ministry of the Interior. As well as indications from other agencies of the Central State Administration and social and mass organizations.
"The execution of the alternative sanctions will be in charge of the execution judges, who are responsible for the control, attention, and influence of the convicts and are based in the Municipal Courts."
"The controlled person complies in the area of residence and all activities and measures are coordinated with the local organs of the People's Power, institutions, educational or improvement centers, organizations, and other entities of each territory. The competent Court may authorize, for justified reasons that he does so outside the municipality where he lives.
"Of course, the new sentence may be revoked if he does not appear before the judge or in the receiving establishment on the date set to begin serving it, or if before or during its execution he is again sentenced to deprivation of liberty for another crime, or if he refuses to fulfill some obligations inherent to his status."
The specialist explains that, as part of this process, other alternative sanctions are incorporated into the Penal Code, such as home confinement, which is served in the home where the prisoner lives, who is under the attention, influence, control, and surveillance of the enforcement judge, the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), the social and mass organizations, and the bodies in charge of prevention, assistance, and social work in his place of residence, as well as the employer and the management of the labor, educational, or improvement center to which he is linked, if appropriate.
In addition to this group of possibilities, as detailed, the service for the benefit of the community, which is carried out in the place where the work assigned by the judge of execution must be developed, giving priority to activities of particular social relevance in the locality where the sanctioned person lives, is added to this group of possibilities.
"Another new issue, which has been of great interest to the population, are the early release benefits that have modifications as to their terms. For example, in the case of correctional work with internment, the benefit to be granted will be that of parole, so that they will have the right to sentence reductions."
Likewise, the term for the benefit to be granted is reduced to one-third in the case of primary women (first-time offenders) and young people who have not reached 20 years of age when they begin to serve their sentence. "It also incorporates that two-thirds of the sanction imposed must be served by those whose sentences have been revoked, and in the cases provided for in the sentence.
The expert emphasizes that the legislation regulates the new procedure to be followed with the post-criminal security measures, the rights of the citizens who are in conditions of internment, as well as the access to the employment of these and the disciplinary regime in case of disobedience committed by them.
Her criteria, together with those of other experts who have joined the debate on the subject, support the importance of multisectoral work for the success of such a mission. In the first place, the family, because experts affirm that it is much easier for convicts to find the path to social reinsertion if they know the family accompanying them.
It is also vital the participation of the mass organizations, Labor directorates, the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), the members of the community, and the commissions of Prevention of the Popular Councils, which intervene in the control, attention, and influences those who are released because the fundamental objective is to achieve that they return to the social bosom with responsibility, to be useful.
