People in prison have access to drinking water only at certain times of the day. They are served two or three meals a day depending on the facility. The first meal is generally served around 9 a.m., and the last one between 3 p.m and 5 p.m.

The quantity and the quality of the food do not meet the nutritional needs of people in prison. They rely on their loved ones or, for those who can afford it, on the supplies available in the prison commissary.

There is no minimum standard for living space set in the national regulations.

People in prison are generally held in multiple occupancy cells. The occupancy level has increased in the past years. Remand facilities face the highest levels of overcrowding. It reached 358% in Taltal Remand Prison in 2018. The National Human Rights Institute (Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos, INDH) noted the same year in Calama remand facility: “each cell measures about 2.04 meters by 2.46 meters in which currently sleep seven people. There are four beds in the cell”.

Each person in prison has the right to be provided with a cot, a mattress, and a blanket by the prison administration (Article 46, Decree 518). The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (Comité para la Prevención de la Tortura, CPT) observed in 2018 that up to 51% of men in prisons were not provided with an individual bed.

The premises are not kept clean, the temperature is not regulated, ventilation is insufficient. Pests among which earwigs, bedbugs, mice, cockroaches, and fleas were observed in at least 12 facilities in 2018.

Sanitary facilities are insufficient and in poor condition. They are shared within multiple occupancy cells or located in communal areas. People in prison do not have any privacy. In several regions, the water supplied is not hot, even when temperatures are very low. In Maule region, the INDH noted in 2018 that only two of the eight facilities provided hot water.

Access to toilets and bathrooms located in communal areas is limited to a few hours a day. In 2018, the INDH observed that in the prison complex of Arica, people only had access to sanitary facilities for 15 minutes at 9 a.m., 12 p.m. and 7 p.m. In 2023, the Court of Appeal of Copiapó condemned the prison administration for letting women in prison 15 hours without access to sanitary facilities.

People in prison are not provided with any personal hygiene products - including sanitary products - or clothing by the prison administration. They must obtain them themselves or rely on their loved ones.

Poor detention conditions contribute significantly to the risk of people in prison falling ill. The risk of disease transmission is high.

In its 2022 report, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (Comité para la Prevención de la Tortura, CPT) addressed the lack of awareness and information programmes. Screenings are organised to target diseases prevalent in detention, such as HIV and Tuberculosis. They are insufficient, due to a lack of health workers.

Upon entry, people in prison must undergo a medical examination. In practice, it is often carried out long after their admission. The CPT considered in 2022 that the examinations were frequently incomplete.

General medical care is provided in the infirmary rooms. The CPT reported in 2022 that they were unsanitary and lacking both equipment and medication. The National Human Rights Institute (Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos, INDH) reported in 2018 that Combarbalá prison had no infirmary room.

The number of doctors is insufficient. In 2019, there was only one doctor for 2.859 people in prison in Tarapacá region and one for 2.229 in Arica region. Mental health and dental care workers are even rarer. Nurses and paramedical technicians provide most of the care, even when the needs exceed their role and abilities.

Health workers are employed by hourly contracts. They are not permanently established in one facility. They are not independent from the prison administration (Gendarmería de Chile).

People who cannot be provided with adequate care must be transferred to hospital facilities (Article 35 of Decree 518). In practice, the coordination between prisons and public health system is deficient. People in prison can wait long periods for treatment.

The National Service for the Elderly (Servicio Nacional del Adulto Mayor) is responsible for meeting the needs of the elderly. In prison, their specific needs are generally not attended. Some facilities are equipped with therapeutics communities (comunidades terapéuticas) to accompany people suffering from addictions. In February 2018, only 12 out of the 53 prisons visited by the Judicial Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court were equipped with such communities. The offer is limited, and eligibility criteria are strict and cumulative.

Access to health care for women is inadequate, with a significant shortage of health care staff such as gynecologists. Pregnant women can receive medical care in one of the country’s 26 Mother and Child Sections (Sección Materno Infantil, SMI). In December 2022, the CPT reported that a woman gave birth in a corridor in San Miguel prison. The SMI section was full, and she had not been cared for during her pregnancy.

The CPT alarmed several times on the critical lack of health care for people with mental health issues. Recourse to solitary confinement and sedative measures are common practices.

A medical file is open for each people in prison. The recording system within prisons is not set accordingly to the standards of the Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud). The lack of coordination and communication of information with the general health system is an obstacle to continuity of care.

Legal assistance is provided by private lawyers and by the Public Penal Defense (Defensoría Penal Pública). One of the missions of this public service is to visit people in prison and inform them of their rights. The Public Penal Defense is not a system well-known by people in prison and acts with very limited human resources. Visits by legal advisors tend to happen in places that do not guarantee the confidentiality of the discussions.

There is no standardised and reliable way for people in prison to notify a third party. Phones are scarce and do not always allow calls to be made outside of Chile, affecting foreign nationals in particular.

People in prison depend on informal communication with other incarcerated persons, their lawyers or the Public Penal Defense, to access the facility’s internal regulations.

The applicable disciplinary system is detailed in the Regulation of Penitentiary Establishments (Reglamento de establecimientos penitenciarios). Some key aspects, such as the regulation of the use of force, are only defined in broad terms.

Some facilities have specific wards for people in situation of vulnerability. In 2018, a study established that 18 facilities were equipped with units designated for LGBTQI+ people. The following year, the National Human Rights Institute (Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos, INDH) noted that the separation between people serving a sentence and those awaiting trial was not effective in all facilities.

The preventive framework to protect people in prison is not effective. To apply any sanction, the head of the unit must report the breach of discipline, and the sanction requested to the judge of guarantee. Judges lack specialisation in prison matters. This negatively impacts their ability to assess the proportionality of the sanction.

According to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (Comité para la Prevención de la Tortura, CPT) the suspension of visits was the most applied sanction (71.7%) in 2018, along with individual or collective confinement (24%). Isolation cells are in poor conditions. They lack hygiene, light or ventilation.

Poor material conditions, prolonged solitary confinement and ill treatment of visitors are reported across the country. People from indigenous communities and their families are more likely to be victims of this violence. This is also the case for foreign nationals.

Chile has ratified the Optional Protocol for the Convention against Torture on 12 December 2008. A National Preventive Mechanism, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, was established in 2019. It is currently composed of seven experts. One of them is specialised in prison matters. It carries out regular inspections and has published three annual reports since its creation.

Civil society organisations, such as LEASUR (Litigación Estructural para América del Sur), are present in some facilities and publish report on the conditions of detention in Chile. Prosecutors and judges of guarantees are entitled to conduct visits, but they generally do not exercise this right.

To this day, there is neither an internal inspection body nor a functioning internal mechanism for people in prison to raise a complaint. In its 2022 report, the National Preventive Mechanism summarised the situation as follows: “Currently, there is a conviction among the prison population that institutional channels are neither safe nor capable of responding to their needs and receiving complaints of abuse and mistreatment by both peers and staff.”

Lawyers and third parties can raise a complaint to the administration or to a judge, on behalf of a person in prison.

The Labour Code (Código del Trabajo) is applicable in prison. The prison administration (Gendarmería de Chile) is responsible for ensuring compliance with these rules to protect people in prison working.

Voluntary people can be assigned a job by the prison administration (Gendarmería de Chile) or be self-employed. Assigned jobs include working for the prison administration or for a third party, under public supervision. These can be carried out in a prison Education and Work Center (Centro de Educación y Trabajo).

Jobs available include baking, furniture building, welding, handicrafts and sewing. The job assignment process is not transparent. It depends on people in prison’s disciplinary classification by the administration. Experts indicated that arbitrary enforcement of disciplinary sanctions is an obstacle for people in prison’s access to work.

Self-employment can be initiated by people in prison themselves. It is not regulated. It mostly consists in the production and selling of artisanal artefacts.

In practice, access to work remains limited. In 2019, the prison administration declared that 34.9% of people in prison worked during their detention. A majority of this work (77.6%) consists of informal activities and unpaid maintenance services. The distribution of jobs is unequal. Women, people awaiting trial and those incarcerated outside the region of Santiago (capital city) have lower access to work opportunities.

Working conditions are impacted by the lack of light, ventilation and hygiene within facilities. People in prison working under the supervision of the administration should be paid the same rate as the general population (Article 43, Decree 943). In practice, wages are significantly lower in prison.

Vocational training is rarely provided. The offer is limited and focuses on specific technical skills, such as carpentry, electricity or plumbing.

People in prison have access to primary education, provided by teachers within prisons. As of 2018, some were equipped with schools, such as the Linares or Iquique prisons.

Vocational training and education are significantly harder to access for women. In 2021, 28% of incarcerated women completed a course and 10% a basic education programme.

Most people in prison can spend one hour in the open air. Yards are not adapted to climate variations. In the north of the country, they can be exposed to very high temperatures and sun, with no shelter. People in solitary confinement are deprived from this right.

Cultural and sporting activities such as boxing or music classes are organised but remain rare. Many facilities do not have libraries. When they do, these tend to be poorly furnished and depend on donations.

People awaiting trial are rarely authorised to attend any type of activities. In the remand facility of Chile Chico, recreational and physical activities are not organised. In Arica prison complex, people held in the Sexual Diversity Unit (Módulo de Diversidad Sexual) and women serving a sentence could not attend sporting activities in 2018.

In 2022, the National Institute for Human Rights noted that 45.9% of people in prison declared themselves as Catholic. There are not enough places of worship, in particular those designed to accommodate several religions. People from indigenous communities are specifically discriminated against in the practice of their religion or spirituality.

The normative framework ensures the right to correspond in writing, to receive visitors and to be granted temporary leave to visit their loved ones (Articles 41 to 54 and 96 to 103, Decree 518). In practice, these rights are subject to frequent violations. The right to use the phone is not guaranteed by the regulations.

The prison administration does not provide the means or a standardised procedure for people in prison to correspond in writing.

People in prison can call their loved ones, but only a few phones are available in the common areas. The prison administration does not offer financial assistance to people in prison who cannot afford the price of communication. In 2023, a five-minute communication cost 2,000 Chilean pesos (2,09 euros)¹ in Alto Hospicio prison. The Committee for the prevention of Torture (Comité para la Prevención de la Tortura, CPT) considered this cost to be high, particularly for foreign women with few resources.

The right to receive visitors is subject to frequent severe violations. The suspension of this right is the most used disciplinary sanction.  Visitors are searched by the prison administration upon entry. Many cases of inhuman and degrading treatment are reported against people in prison and their loved ones during searches.

Visiting rooms tend to be unhygienic and unsuitable for privacy. In 2018, only men in prison could receive visits in dedicated spaces in Punta Arenas prison. Women in prison received visits sitting on benches in the central corridor.

Temporary leaves are increasingly difficult to obtain. They are mainly granted in the cases of death of a loved one. People in prison and prison staff are not always aware of this right.

Children are allowed to stay with their mother until the age of two. They are placed with them in specific units: the Mother and Child Sections (Secciones Materno Infantil, SMI). These are present in 26 of the 38 facilities where women are held. In 2018, 112 women were incarcerated with their children in prison. 

People in prison have access to information through television. These can be in cells or common areas depending on the facilities. Other means of information such as newspapers or radio stations are rarely available.

Article 16 of the Constitution establishes that people “charged with an offence punishable by affliction or for an offence which the law classifies as terrorist behaviour” lose their right to vote. In 2022, the National Service of Election (Servicio Electoral Nacional) estimated that around 80% of people in prison were deprived of their voting rights. In 2021, following the mobilisation of civil society organisations, the Supreme Court ruled that the authorities should provide people in prison with the means to vote. As a result, 889 people in prison were registered as voters and polling stations were established in 14 facilities. In 2022, less than 10% of eligible voters casted their ballot in the constitutional referendum of 4 September 2022.