Frederico Morais, President of the National Prison Guard Union, claims a lack of resources has led to poor security in Portuguese prisons.
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00:00After the escape of five inmates from a Portuguese high security penitentiary, the Justice Minister
00:07announced urgent audits of the security and management systems of the country's 49 prisons.
00:23One of the flaws in security is the deactivation of the watchtowers, which were replaced by
00:28a video surveillance system due to lack of personnel. These towers not only observed
00:34the prisoners, but also detected any strange movement outside the prison.
00:41Prison guards have also complained about being assigned multiple responsibilities for which
01:00they have not been trained.
01:12We are the only country in Europe that has joined the punitive part with the re-insertion.
01:19We cannot join a security force with the re-insertion, because we are prison guards, our job is to
01:24ensure the security of the prisoners and not to re-insert the prisoners in society.
01:33This problem is further increased by the overcrowding of prisons. Data from 2023 show that the occupation
01:40is over 90% and already considered high risk. Above the limit are 24 prison establishments,
01:47including the one in Porto.