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Peru CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Rising Crime Rates
Just as Peru's armed forces and police were buffeted by
a
number of challenges during the 1980s, so too were the
country's
judicial and penal systems. Despite the return to civilian
government in 1980 under the constitution of 1979 and the
widespread expectation at the time that this would also
normalize
the application and administration of justice, such was
not to be
the case. The recurring economic crisis of the 1980s and
early
1990s prevented providing the judicial branch with the
constitutionally mandated 2 percent of the government
budget. In
1989 the sum appropriated was 1.4 percent; in 1990 it was
0.9
percent, or about US$15 million. The economic difficulties
also
contributed to increases in crime rates as more of the
population
struggled to cope with rising unemployment and
underemployment.
Recorded crimes of all types increased from 210,357 in
1980 to
248,670 in 1986, or by 18 percent; these data of the
General
Police (PG) and the Technical Police (PT) were believed to
underrepresent actual figures.
Incomplete data resulted in part from the growing
number of
provinces during the 1980s under states of emergency
because of
insurgent activity (almost half of Peru's 183 provinces by
mid1991 ). The states of emergency suspended constitutional
guarantees of due process and freedom of movement and
assembly,
and placed all executive branch authority in local
military
commands. Many actions by military and insurgents alike
were
often not reported as crimes.
The guerrillas also threatened judicial branch
officials at
all levels and killed some, so that at times large numbers
of
openings, particularly at the lower levels, were much
delayed in
being filled. (In 1989, for example, over one-third of
Peru's
4,583 justice of the peace positions were vacant.) The
combination of vacancies and intimidation then further
delayed
judicial resolution of pending cases; a mere 3.1 percent
of
crimes committed in 1980 resulted in sentences, only 2.6
percent
in 1986. Of the approximately 40,000 inmates in Peru's 111
to 114
prisons in 1990, 80 percent were waiting to be tried and
nearly
10 percent had completed their sentences but remained in
jail,
according to the head of the Minister of Interior's
National
Institute of Prisons (Instituto Nacional
Penitenciario--Inpe).
Concern was also expressed that many of the justices and
judicial
branch employees replaced during the 1985-90 APRA
government were
selected more by political rather than judicial criteria.
In
short, a situation that had always been far from
satisfactory
became even less so by 1990.
One result of President Fujimori's autogolpe of
April
5, 1992, was the suspension and reorganization of Peru's
judiciary. As of October, over half of the twenty-five
Supreme
Court judges had been replaced, along with scores of
judicial
officials at other levels. Among other post-April 5
changes were
decrees defining terrorism as treason, thereby placing
trials for
alleged actions in military courts as well as extending
sentences
from a twenty-year maximum to life imprisonment without
parole.
The economic crises, the insurgency, and the drug
trafficking
were major contributors to rising crime rates in the
1980s.
Illegal drug-trafficking crimes recorded by the PG between
1980
and 1986 increased by 67 percent, almost four times the
rate of
growth of crime overall. Drug-trafficking arrests between
1985
and 1988 totaled about 4,500, but were a small fraction of
all
arrests for alleged crimes for the period (574,393 total
arrests,
almost 3 percent of Peru's population). Guerrilla attacks
during
the Belaúnde government (1980-85) totaled 5,880, with
deaths
attributed to the subversion coming to 8,103. These levels
increased during the García government (1985-90) to 11,937
insurgent actions associated with over 9,660 deaths.
Extrajudicial disappearances during the 1980s, most often
linked
to the army and police in the emergency zones, approached
5,000.
From July 28, 1990, to June 30, 1992, the first two years
of the
Fujimori administration, 2,990 incidents and 6,240 deaths
were
recorded.
Data as of September 1992
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