A recent Colombian law allows some women to be released from prison – but the resumption of life is not easy

Colombia
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“God, you also handed the freedom of my son,” said Patricia Cortes when he left the pastor prison on El Buen on September 17, 2024. He had hoped to guarantee the food and health of her son at the exit of prison. However, after six months of freedom, although he considers that she is a beneficiary of the recent rights of public utility in Colombia, she underlines a defect: “we leave the vulnerable prison.”

The law allows the heads of female households to execute their penalties outside the prison in exchange for unpaid community services. It is considered the first criminal policy with a gender accent in Colombia and a model for Latin America. However, two years after its approval, there are still obstacles to the incarcerated women to benefit from law and to reintegrate into society.

Cortes, 22 years old, entered the Pastor El Buen prison in Bogota on October 31, 2023. She was sentenced to six years and five months in prison for conspiracy for committing a crime, drug trafficking, manufacturing or ownership. Her son was born four days later.

When he first heard about the law of public utility, he refused to arrest seven times, she says.

It has met the three requirements to access the benefit: to be the head of the female household, having a punishment of less than eight years or for offenses related to theft or amazing and has committed it under marginality conditions.

“My mother sold drugs, and I accompanied it. I was recklessly caught; We were accused of being leaders of a band, ”she says. However, she insists that she has no intention to do harm to anyone and that this necessity has led her: “We are eight brothers, five are minors. Dad is homeless. The mother worked in the central park in Fusagasuga, selling corn, bubbles, ice cream, but what she won was not enough for the household. ”

This context, together with the documentation that her lawyer gathered, who included interviews with her brothers showing how the prison affected her, was enough for a judge to give her release from prison.

The law on public utility was adopted on March 8, 2023. Since then, 133 women have been released on February 28, 2025, According to data from the Ministry of Justice of Colombia. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people are considered to meet the requirements to be beneficiaries, according to the non-profit Mujere Libres organization.

The lack of awareness of the law and the difficulty of documenting cases are some of the main obstacles identified by the organizations of civil society that monitor how it is applied. To this is added the interpretations made by the judges, who decide whether or not they give the benefit regarding the concept of marginality and care.

To solve this problem, organizations such as Mujeres Libres, who work to guarantee the rights of women in prison and their families, have made workshops to socialize the regulation in prisons and with the officials of the judicial branches.

However, Claudia Cardona, the director of the organization, says that even when women can overcome these obstacles, they face the absence of a public policy for leaving the prison: “Women have no jobs, the financial system stops, faces the breakdown of family ties, there is no psychosocial support. One is convicted of life, ”she says.

“When I left the prison, I didn’t look back,” says Cortes. She received a notification of release on the same day as her mother, to whom she granted the benefit. They arrived unexpectedly at their house in Fusagasuga, a city at 70 kilometers (43 miles) of Bogota, near midnight. Her grandmother cried with emotion, while some of her brothers did not recognize it. “I was a complete stranger,” she says.

Adapting to her new daily life was not easy. The course of preparation for freedom he took in prison did not learn how to cope with the stigma: “If I have a criminal record, how do I find a job?” she says.

In the six months in which he came out of prison, he received offers only for day -to -day jobs, a driver, informal seller and internal worker, even though he has training as a healthcare assistant.

Her priority is now the community service she offers, from Monday to Friday, at the Colombian Institute of Family Assistance, through which she fulfills her sentence. However, the programs have shown an obstacle to find a stable job and, as a result, obtaining financial resources to fulfill its role as female chief of the household, she says.

The law on public utilities promised to issue a public employment policy aimed at improving job training in prisons and ensuring that women who benefit from politics are able to join the labor market. However, the two -year term granted to the Ministry of Labor, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Commerce, is approaching expiration and there have been not too many progress in designing employment policy.

CNN has contacted the Ministry of Justice for more information.

“How do I manage my time between my son, work and social service?” says Cortes. She is a single mother and does not have a assistance network to help her son with the care of her, as she did in prison.

Although the Colombian law allows children to incarcerated persons to be with their mothers in detention centers up to the age of three, they also ask them to designate two “tutors” who can take care of the child during temporary leaves or in other situations such as medical appointments. During Cortes in prison, this role was assumed by a woman from a pastoral group living in Bogota, three hours away. Now she helps taking care of her son during the week.

“I know that next year my son will be with me every day, so I will not break down,” says Cortes while making plans. Until February 2026, it will be completed the time of community service requested by the Ministry of Justice. “I will focus on completing my sentence (…) I want to register at the university, study law and help women in prison. I also see myself playing professional football inside. ”

Even though there are obstacles to its implementation, the law of public utility is still a landmark for sex, for its emphasis on women who are devoid of their freedom, says Liliana Sanchez, a doctorate in legal sciences and vice -president of the Javerian University.

research “Women and prison in Colombia”, Coautor de Sanchez, highlights the family context of female criminals, the reasons for entering the criminal justice system and the effects of their imprisonment.

One of the main conclusions is that, before their arrest, most women were heads of households, more than half did not finish high school and belonged to low socio -economic layers.

Moreover, since they were primary carers, their detention has had negative impacts on their children. Most are left under the care of the extended family and, in some cases, are separated by their brothers. Instead, “when the father is detained, the children remain under the mother’s care,” the report indicates.

Regarding the criminal profile of women, investigations show that the main crimes for which many women are convicted are drug trafficking, conspiracy for committing a crime and theft. According to the investigation, many have committed non-violent offenses and do not present a serious risk for public safety.

Identifying these differences between men and women “regarding the path to crime and the differentiated impact of the prison,” says Sánchez, is that more efficient criminal policies can be formulated to prevent women from recovering and aggravating gender inequality.

“War against drugs” and its disproportionate impact on women in Latin America

The situation in Latin America is not different. In the past two decades there has been an exponential increase in the female penitentiary population, according to a 2020 report by the Human Rights Organization, Wola, which concludes that this trend is due to drug laws that disproportionately affects women.

“The roles in which women are generally recruited on drug markets are high exposure roles (…) when there is an operation, they are the first detected in the law and are quickly incriminated,” explains Isabel Pereira, coordinator for the drug policy of the non-profit organization.

However, the legislation does not distinguish the levels of participation in drug trafficking. “Everything is typified in the same way. The great head of the criminal network that directs a drug operation is treated just like the woman who delivers joints to a store, ”she says.

A criminal policy focused on gender, which can deviate women from the criminal system and can avoid perpetuating poverty cycles, is important, according to international guidelines on human rights and drugs in the United Nations Development Program.

It is a double tragedy, says Pereira, as the incarceration has dramatic consequences on women and is ineffective in terms of public policy: “The state spends large amounts and keeping it in prison, but does not affect the functioning of drug markets.