The Prison Services are part of an area of state sovereignty that is decisive for maintaining the democratic rule of law. The recent prison break, the biggest tragedy to hit these services in recent decades, is a sign of the situation of decadence and crisis into which the Republic has plunged.
If we think about the state of the NHS, education, housing, and justice, we see a country failing in its fundamental duties. It’s no wonder that extremist and xenophobic political forces are growing in this pessimistic environment.
Vale de Judeus Prison has the highest peripheral walls in the country, but five inmates overcame the supposedly insurmountable obstacles in six minutes. The prison has a history of escapes through tunnels, but now it has innovated with an original escape: over the walls.
It’s curious to see how the hot pads, collected by the government, have appeared to accommodate this tragic moment: the low rate of escapes, the ratio of guards per inmate higher than the European average, and other similar painkillers have managed to pass unscathed by the severe criticism that must be leveled at the Republic’s management of the prison system.
A country like Portugal doesn’t have the resources to maintain forty-nine prisons. The greatest tragedy of the Prison Services, which has never really been tackled, is the multifaceted, obsolete, and anachronistic prison stock that plagues a small country like ours. This stock includes 19th-century buildings (Ponta Delgada) and tiny jails (Chaves, Lamego, Torres Novas, Silves, Olhão, Covilhã, among others), which are absolutely dysfunctional.
The state is not meeting the burden of providing all these prisons with guards, security and surveillance equipment, technicians, vehicles, administrative staff, health personnel, psychologists, and managers.
However, there is no political will to rationalize the prison stock, pool resources, and reduce burdens…
As the famous Roman general used to say, we are a people that neither governs itself nor allows itself to be governed, and let’s not think this issue is foreign to our region. The state’s inability to invest in and reform a dysfunctional system that mistreats prisoners and allows scandalous escapes like the recent one is directly reflected in the Azores.
In addition to the strange business of thinning the road surface, there is the absolute inability of the Republic to invest in the new prison, promised years ago, in São Miguel, for which there are no new prisoners or warrants.
Our region’s prisoners, who are human beings and have the right to be treated with dignity, will continue for many years in the old Ponta Delgada facility, which offers housing and prison treatment that would make any decent person blush.
There has also been talk of the Terceira Prison—the humidity, the mattresses, the difficulty getting medical attention. What is the state of the internal surveillance circuit?
The Autonomous Region is being hit hard by the Republic’s inability to manage its prison services. Have we heard our leaders calling on the Republic to fulfill its duties, since we are also children of the Republic here, and to take concrete steps to build the promised São Miguel prison? The answer is no because, as we know, Bolieiro (the President of the Government of the Azores) certainly doesn’t have time for details.
How long will the Republic’s inability to assume its responsibilities penalize us?
Montenegro (Portugal’s current Prime Minister) came with everything, but nothing came of it.


Alexandra Manes publishes regularly in Azorean newspapers. She is originally from the island of Flores and currently makes her home in Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira, Azores.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores to give the diaspora and those interested in the current Azores a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL).