86 g) the State’s acknowledgement of the alleged victims named in the Court’s order of June 21, 2002, is a contradiction and a “juridical aberration,” since the failure to adopt adequate measures of protection (legislative, administrative and judicial) affected everyone who was at the Center at the time of the events in question; in other words, it affected the deceased and injured inmates and all the other inmates as well; and h) the State failed to cultivate policies that took into account the fact that some of the children were particularly deprived, both economically and socially. 139. As for the violation of Article 4 of the American Convention in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, the representatives argued that: a) the State is responsible for the deprivation of the right to life of the twelve inmates who died; b) a State does not fulfill its obligation to protect the right to life merely by refraining from depriving persons of their life arbitrarily; instead the protection of the right to life requires a more pro-active attitude on the State’s part, especially when the persons deprived of liberty are children. The State has an obligation to guarantee the life of any persons under detention. Therefore, once it has been shown that the alleged victim died in custody, it is up to the State to prove that it had absolutely nothing to do with the cause of death; c) overcrowding, caused in part by the excessive use of preventive detention, breeds violence and aggressiveness; d) the prison conditions that the State allowed to persist at the Center were totally at odds with instruments for the protection of children’s rights; the State did not take measures to prevent and avoid fires, such as installing a smoke alarm system, fire extinguishers and emergency exits; e) the Center did not have proper equipment and its staff was neither sufficient in number nor properly trained; f) the State ignored the repeated requests from national and international institutions asking it to establish detention conditions commensurate with the children’s human dignity; g) the violent riots were preventable; and h) the State is responsible for the deaths of the two adolescents who were transferred to the adult prison at Emboscada, as these young people were in the custody of the State. If the State did not have a proper place to house the children, it should have either ordered in-home detention or released the children, especially inasmuch as the majority of the children were in preventive detention. 140. Concerning the violation of Article 5 of the American Convention in relation to Article 1(1) thereof, the representatives alleged that:

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