Peru’s highest constitutional court ruled that conditions in the country’s prisons were so deficient that they represented an “unconstitutional state of affairs.” If this state of affairs is not resolved by 2025, it would close the six prisons with the highest rates of overcrowding. The Tribunal also ruled that prisons should preferably only contain persons who had “committed serious crimes involving danger to society,” and that it was “incoherent” to lock up persons convicted of other crimes who could instead complete non-carceral penalties.

In a press release, the Tribunal said that solving overcrowding required joint collaboration between all three branches of government and the participation of society at large. The full text of the Tribunal’s decision will be published on June 4th.

Read the Constitutional Tribunal's press release here (in Spanish). 

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