The mass hysteria that befell mostly female inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) again highlighted the fetid, dismal conditions of the provincial jail and how overpopulation has contributed to that facility’s decay, despite Capitol’s efforts to improve the prisoners’ welfare.
A program that would employ senior law students in processing the cases of the inmates, not a few of whom shouldn’t have to stay in prison one minute longer than necessary, gives hope that perhaps the number of inmates will thin out considerably in a decade or two.
But the judiciary and law enforcement agencies which comprise the country’s justice system may want to add more prosecutors to their ranks or adopt a pre-trial services branch to augment the existing setup of prosecutors.
The importance of pre-trial services was discussed in an episode in the US of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver wherein the host criticized the inadequacy and inequality of the US bail system.
According to Oliver, the bail system works against the poor who are forced to cough up substantial amounts of cash to secure temporary liberty or avoid jail time.
As everyone who’s ever landed behind bars will tell you, jail time can certainly ruin a person’s reputation even if he or she was detained for minor crimes. The US pre-trial services had been credited with lowering the prison population in the state of Washington.
In the Philippines, people usually land in jail whether or not they committed bailable or non-bailable crimes. Like in the US, but a lot worse, suspects in this country have a harder time raising money to pay bail.
Only the very rich can afford to pay bail and skip jail time, yet another painful reminder of how grossly imbalanced the country’s justice system is in favor of the ruling elite.
The burden of processing or handling the cases of people falls squarely on the prosecutors whose numbers are far too thin to begin with. Adding to their ranks would be the obvious solution, but again, why not consider creating a pre-trial services branch?
The US model consists of an interviewer, who deals directly with the accused and has acquired basic legal training, a researcher/bookkeeper and a forensics expert.
Their value lies in the fact that they can help resolve cases especially involving minor and bailable offenses at the basic level without having it go through trial, sparing suspects the trouble of raising bail money as well as the unenviable distinction of spending time in an overcrowded, dingy prison cell.
Can pre-trial services work here in the country? Owing to the Supreme Court’s continued efforts to declog their overflowing dockets of cases that have long gathered dust for decades or so, this suggestion may merit some consideration.
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