16 necessary and if it is disproportionate in regards to the unlawful act: capital punishment or life sentence for trifling crimes, an excess widely documented in historical experience and not unknown in current experience. This radical moderation of the violence exercised by the State must be reflected in the conditions of compliance with procedural precautions and execution of punishment. The Court has asserted this several times. 68. This moderation –strictly speaking, rationality- in the use of force involved in measures regarding the individual’s liberty encompasses provisional measures, such as those set forth in the September 13, 1996 ruling, in the Loayza Tamayo case. The description given then continues to reflect the conditions of the detainees in many prisons. In that case, the accused –stated the ruling- “is subjected to a regime of inhuman and degrading treatment caused by incommunicado detention and by being enclosed for 23 1/2 hours a day in a damp, cold cell measuring approximately 2 meters by 3 meters, without direct ventilation, containing cement bunks, a latrine and a handbasin... The cell has no direct lighting and is only dimly and indirectly lit from the fluorescent tubes in the corridors. She is not allowed neither a radio, newspapers nor magazines. She is allowed into the sunlight for only 20 to 30 minutes a day.” 69. Of course, moderation encompasses the whole process of incarceration, including acts that may have as their objective the prevention or punishment of unlawful behavior or reduction of resistance to authority. Regarding the latter type of situation, the judgments of the Court in the Neira Alegría and Durán and Ugarte cases are very significant, in regards to containment of a prisoners’ riot through a massively destructive use of explosives, which caused the death of dozens of inmates. 70. At this time of assessment of the situation of human rights in the Americas, fiftyfive years after the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, thirty-five after the signing of the American Convention, and twenty-five since the establishment of the Inter-American Court, we must take note of the horrors that persist in many prisons, flagrantly violating the most basic rights of inmates. In this regard, the condition of helplessness, exposition, vulnerability that I referred to above when I mentioned the crucial role of the “guarantor” State in this field, is especially noteworthy and evident. We have only advanced a short distance from Howard’s complaints, which continue to be valid two centuries and many years after the English philanthropist documented them in a couple of admirable works. 71. In several rulings of the Inter-American Court -both provisional measures and judgments on the merits and reparations- the true state of the prisons has been shown quite clearly, together with absolutely abusive treatment of the inmates, the irrational nature of punishment inflicted inside the prison walls, lack of training and extreme cruelty of the guards, impunity of the guilty ones. This is proven. The respondent parties are found responsible. And nothing happens, or very little. This situation not only breaches the commitments undertaken by signing the respective international instruments and the obligations to suppress obstacles and to adopt domestic legal measures –normative ones, yes, but also practical and effective ones in accordance with the former-, pursuant to Articles 1(1) and 2 of the American Convention, but also constitutes a source of very grave problems. Prisons are “time bombs,” as has been said, and they can explode at any moment. These explosions are becoming more and more frequent or visible. 72. Those who study the criminal system and the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court, those who resort to it seeking to examine violations, prepare a diagnosis and undertake corrective measures, may take a complete census of prison wrongs based on