During the toughest months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kirchnerist government of Alberto Fernández faced harsh criticism for the mass release of prisoners under the pretext of avoiding overcrowding and preventing contagion in prisons.
Although officials tried to justify it by claiming it was "house arrest," the reality is that thousands of criminals, including rapists and murderers, regained their freedom and in practice disappeared from judicial control. Many of those released were even arrested again in the following years after committing new crimes.
According to available data, between March and July 2020, more than 2,200 inmates left the Federal Penitentiary Service, with an exponential increase in house arrests: 735 between April and May alone, 12 times more than the previous year.
In Buenos Aires province, the stronghold of Kirchnerism under the government of Axel Kicillof, the figure was even more shocking: approximately 5,646 releases in 2020, with an average of 15 inmates released per day. Nationally, various reports estimated that more than 10,000 criminals left prisons during that year, with a sharp spike in the first months of the pandemic.
