16 42. Similarly, during its most recent working visits, the Rapporteurship on Persons Deprived of Liberty has paid particular attention to the situation of people held in pretrial detention. For example, in Colombia, it noted that of the total number of 113,884 people deprived of liberty as of December 31, 2012, 30% had not been 54 convicted; in Uruguay, it reported that of a prison population of 9,067 inmates in June 55 2011, 65% were still undergoing prosecution; and in Argentina, it observed that official statistics reported that 61% of the 30,132 people deprived of their liberty in the province of Buenos Aires in March 2010 had not yet received a final sentence, while civil 56 society organizations claimed, on their part, that the real figure was 70%. 43. Based on its direct experience in the field and on its monitoring of the region’s human rights situation in recent years, the Inter-American Commission has identified the following causes for the high rates of detainees being held without a conviction: judicial delays and backlog, which in turn arise from a series of deeper dysfunctions and structural shortcomings within judicial systems; the lack of operational and technical capacity of police forces and investigation services; the lack of operational capacity, independence, and resources among public defense offices; shortcomings in access to those public defense services; a lack of judicial independence, with judges in some cases refraining from ordering other precautionary measures out of fear of sanctions or removal from their positions, and with others giving in to the pressure of the media; legislation that favors the use of pretrial detention and restricts the access to …continuation 144th regular period of sessions, organized by Document, Analysis, and Action for Social Justice (Documenta), Legal Assistance for Human Rights (ASILEGAL), and the Institute of Human Rights Ignacio Ellacuría, S.J., of the Ibero-American University of Puebla, March 23, 2012; Situation of the Judiciary in Haiti, 143rd regular period of sessions, organized by Citizen Action for Respect for Human Rights (ACREDH), October 28, 2011; Situation of Persons Deprived of Liberty in Venezuela, 141st regular period of sessions, organized by the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory (OVP), the Human Rights Commission of the Venezuela Lawyers’ Federation, and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), March 29, 2011; Human Rights Situation of Persons Deprived of Liberty in the Province of Buenos Aires, 141st regular period of sessions, organized by CELS and the Memory Commission of the Province of Buenos Aires, March 28, 2011; Human Rights Situation of Persons Deprived of Liberty in the Province of Buenos Aires , 134th regular period of sessions, organized by the Legal and Social Studies Center (CELS), March 24, 2009; Prison Situation in Buenos Aires, 124th regular period of sessions, organized by the Legal and Social Studies Center (CELS) and the Provincial Commission for Memory, March 6, 2006; Situation of People Deprived of Liberty in El Salvador, 124th regular period of sessions, organized by FESPAD, CEJIL, and Judges’ Forum, March 3, 2006; Situation of the Prison System in Guatemala, 124th regular session, organized by the Guatemalan Institute of Comparative Criminal Science Studies, March 6, 2006; Situation of People in Preventive Detention in Terrorism Cases, 122nd regular period of sessions, organized by CEAS, APRODEH, and Carolina Loayza, February 28, 2005. Audio and/or video recordings of the hearings held by the IACHR since 2007 are available at: http://www.oas.org/es/cidh/audiencias/default.aspx?lang=en. 54 IACHR, Truth, Justice and Reparation: Fourth Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Colombia, 2013, Ch. VI(G). 55 IACHR, Press Release 76/11 – IACHR Recommends Adoption of a Comprehensive Public Policy on Prisons in Uruguay. Washington, D.C., July 25, 2011, Annex, available at http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/PReleases/2011/076.asp, para. 39. 56 IACHR, Press Release 64/10 – IACHR Rapporteurship Confirms Grave Detention Conditions in Buenos Aires Province, Washington, D.C., June 21, 2010, available at: http://www.cidh.oas.org/Comunicados/English/2010/64-10eng.htm.