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necessary to ensure that arrests are only made by virtue of a court order
or in legitimate in flagrante delicto cases. The Commission especially
underscores the need to establish or, where applicable, strengthen
internal systems for monitoring and supervising the authorities
empowered to make arrests or carry out detentions.
8.
Thoroughly investigate complaints of corruption and influence‐peddling
inside prisons, punish those responsible, and take steps to avoid a
recurrence of the same.
263.
With regard to guards in direct contact with persons deprived of their
liberty, the IACHR makes the following recommendations:
1.
Adopt all necessary measures to ensure that personnel responsible for
direct custody of persons deprived of their liberty are civilian. Make
provisions for replacing the police or military personnel performing those
direct custody functions in places of deprivation of liberty.
2.
Pay particular heed to specialized programs for recruiting and training
personnel assigned to work in direct contact with inmates.
3.
Establish independent and effective monitoring and control mechanisms
of the activity of the prison authorities, which serve to prevent patterns
of violence and abuse against prisoners.
4.
Ensure that police personnel responsible for making arrests or
detentions, or who have persons deprived of liberty in their custody,
identify themselves at all times and that due records are kept of their
actions. This identification criterion shall also apply to those members of
special units that enter the cells to make requisitions.
5.
In cases in which the army is involved in establishing security in detention
centers, ensure that their deployment abides by the principles of legality,
exceptionality, proportionality, and civilian authority oversight.
264.
With regard to the use of force by the authorities in charge of places of
deprivation of liberty, the IACHR makes the following recommendations:
1.
Take all necessary steps to ensure that personnel working in prisons only
use force and coercive methods exceptionally and proportionately, in
serious, urgent and necessary cases, as a last resort having previously
exhausted all available options, and for the duration and to the extent
essential for guaranteeing security, internal order, and the protection of
the fundamental rights of the population deprived of liberty, penitentiary
personnel, and visitors.
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