Meanwhile insecurity is a main concern in Argentina, many myths are spread about delinquency and especially about jails and Argentine prison population. Among them, one of the common beliefs regarding inmates is that their time in jail is rather smooth when compared with their crime or prejudices that are connecting criminality with immigration. La Nación journalist Sol Amaya together with LNData team wanted to investigate data and analyse facts in an area where common beliefs are often out of touch with reality.

With our work, we showed with official data that foreigners only represent 5,7% of argentinian inmates or that half of prison population has never been condemned (one of the highest rates of the world). The team also investigated for the first time the deaths of Argentinian detainees and showed not only that violent deaths increased by 48% between 2009 and 2013 but as well that between 2009 and 2013, the Federal Prison Administration stopped informing realistic numbers of inmate deaths to NGOs. Indeed, in 2009, 79% of inmates deaths were recorded by the public administration while in 2013, only 40% of the deaths were recorded. Today, NGOs find out about deaths through families and friends of the inmates or through media coverage.

To realize this datajournalism investigation, we used both official and NGO data. We first processed all the data published by the justice ministry in their website.

The data was published in PDF format.  Seguir leyendo →