Yamsuan files bill creating Dept. of Corrections and Jail Management

A week after proposing before the House Committee on Justice a measure that aims to unify the country’s fragmented correctional system, Bicol Saro Partylist Representative Brian Raymund Yamsuan has filed House Bill (HB) 8672 that aims to achieve this goal through the creation of a Department of Corrections and Jail Management (DCJM).

In his explanatory note to the measure, Yamsuan said creating the DCJM will “address the inherent flaws in the country’s correctional system,” such as the perennial high congestion rate in jails, limited resources, poor coordination among government agencies involved in penal management, and the abuse and corruption that has prevailed in the National Bilibid Prison (NBP) and other penal facilities.

“By centralizing the oversight and management of prisons and jails and the rehabilitation of Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs) under a single department, the government can achieve greater efficiency and accountability,” said Yamsuan, who filed the bill on August 1.

He said centralizing the management of the corrections, jail management and probations systems, would also “streamline resource allocation and budgeting,” which will then ensure that each penal facility would have adequate funding to support essential services that would contribute to better living conditions and a higher standard of care for PDLs.

This, in turn, will foster an environment more conducive to the rehabilitation of PDLs, noted Yamsuan, who is a former assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the agency that supervises over the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) .

Under HB 8672, the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), which is currently under the Department of Justice (DOJ); the BJMP of the DILG; the correctional and jail services of the provincial governments; the Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP); and the Parole and Probation Administration (PPA) will be placed under the DCJM.

Yamsuan said his proposed DCJM will have four bureaus: 1) the Bureau of Corrections, which shall take over the functions of the defunct DOJ-administered BuCor; 2) Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, which shall take over the functions of the defunct BJMP under the DILG, and is tasked to exercise supervision and control over all provincial, sub-provincial, city, and municipal jails; 3) Bureau of Parole and Probation Administration, which shall assume the functions of the defunct PPA; and 4) the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services, which shall assume the rehabilitation and reintegration services and programs performed by the defunct BuCor, BJMP and PPA.

HB 8672 also provides for the conversion of national prisons and penal farms in Metro Manila, Palawan, Davao, Leyte, Occidental Mindoro and Zamboanga into regional correctional facilities.

The provincial and sub-provincial jails shall be the detention facilities for prisoners serving sentences with penalties of imprisonment for three years and below, while the district, city and municipal jails shall be for detainees who fail to post bail and are awaiting trial or sentencing, Yamsuan said.

Yamsuan said the bill also calls for the creation of a Transition Monitoring Panel to oversee the expeditious and efficient implementation of the transfer to, and absorption by the DCJM of the personnel, properties, finances and records of the government agencies that will be placed under its wing.

This panel will be composed composed of the DOJ Secretary as Chair, and as members, the Secretaries of the DILG and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the Chair of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), the DJCM Secretary, and the Chairs of the committees of the Senate and House of Representatives on Justice, Human Rights and Public Order and Safety.

According to data from BuCor, the NBP and other penal facilities it manages currently houses around 51,500 inmates nationwide. But the total capacity of all these jails is estimated at only 12, 250 inmates, which leads to a congestion rate of 321 percent.

The congestion rate alone of the NBP, the largest mega-prison in the world, is at 377 percent as its current population of 30,701 is only enough for 6,500 inmates.

Yamsuan’s proposed measure was prompted by the briefing conducted last week before the House Justice Committee by Dr. Raymund Narag, a recognized international criminology expert and himself a former detainee.

In his presentation, Narag narrated before lawmakers the deplorable conditions inside the NBP and other jails resulting from the overly high congestion rate in these prisons, the lack of personnel and financial resources, and other structural deficits that breed corruption and irregular practices often tolerated by correction officials to enable them and their detainees.