?Q?Spain_Turns_to_Corruption_Rehab_for_Officials_ Who_Ca?=?Q?n=E2=80=99t_Stop_Stealing?=
Spain Turns to Corruption Rehab for Officials Who Cant Stop Stealing
By Nicholas Casey, 5/17/21, New York Times CÓRDOBA, Spain Carlos Alburquerque isnt your typical rehab candidate. Hes a 75-year-old grandfather living in Córdoba, a city in southern Spain. He was a town notary before he retired in 2015. He hasnt touched drugs or alcohol in years. But his isnt your typical rehab program: Its an 11-month boot camp to reform corrupt Spanish officials and reinsert them into mainstream society. Repairing the damage is what is left for me in this life, said Alburquerque, who is serving a 4-year prison sentence for stealing around 400,000 euros, nearly a half a million dollars, in his work drawing up contracts and deeds. Over the course of 32 sessions in an austere conference room in Córdobas penitentiary, Alburquerque will be monitored by a team of psychiatrists. He will sit in a circle with other convicted officials for group therapy sessions with titles like personal abilities and values. He is, in some ways, the guinea pig of an experiment meant to answer an age-old question: Buried deep in the soul of a swindler like Alburquerque, might there be an honest man? That such a program exists in Spain may say much about the countrys belief in second chances as it does about how corruption has captured the public imagination here. Flip open a newspaper or turn on the radio: You will hear of schemes, scandals and skulduggery which almost always lead back to the public purse. There was the so-called Gürtel Case, sometimes called Spains Watergate, that erupted after a raft of bribes for govt contracts were discovered logged in a notebook belonging to the ruling partys treasurer. The scandal helped topple the party from power in 2018. There was the Palau Case, in which the president of a Catalan music hall defrauded it of 23 million euros, using the proceeds for home renovations and lavish vacations, among other extravagances. In the rocky coastal region of Galicia, police once nabbed a ring of corrupt town officials in a sting called Operation Pokémon. Why it was named after a Japanese video game was never clear but some speculated it was because of the large number of officials involved. (There are hundreds of Pokémon characters.) On a recent afternoon, Ángel Luis Ortiz, a former judge who now runs Spains prisons, let out a long sigh as he looked out from his office into downtown Madrid during a conversation about Spains struggles with public embezzlement. The boom-bust cycles of Spains economy had led it to a long history of fraudsters and betrayals of public trust, he said. But at least, corruption rates in Spain were no worse than in other European nations, Ortiz said, just 5% of all crimes. (The anti-corruption watchdog Transparency Int'l ranks Spain just below France, and above Italy.) It was Spains will to rehab the offenders that set it apart from the rest, Ortiz said an offer which now extends to some 2,044 white-collar criminals in Spanish prisons. Nine prisons are running programs so far, which began in March. Prisoners dont get reduced sentences for joining, but officials say participating is looked on favorably when it comes time to request parole. Who qualifies? Its a veritable Whos Who of Spain. Theres the kings brother-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarin, the handsome Olympic handball player and former Spanish duke who is serving a fraud sentence of almost 6 years, and is partici- pating in the program. Francisco Correa, a businessman nabbed in the Gürtel Case is also enrolled. (Though Spaniards know him better for his nickname, Don Vito, a reference to The Godfather trilogy.) Yet for all the volunteers, Ortiz still thinks his biggest challenge may be convincing Spains corrupt officials that there actually might be something wrong with them. They are people with money & power & we are struggling against this idea that they can get away with anything & dont actually need the help, he said. For that, the govt turned to Sergio Ruiz, a prison psychiatrist in the southern city of Seville who helped design the program. Dr. Ruiz said that in addition to getting participants to recognize their flaws in group therapy, inmates would event- ually be asked to participate in restorative justice sessions where they would ask for forgiveness from their victims. Dr. Ruiz explained he had been surprised at the outset when he searched the scientific literature & found almost nothing on rehabilitating white collar criminals. Psychiatrists had studied murderers ad nauseam, Dr. Ruiz explained. But few had ever bothered to get inside the mind of the shady functionary who swindled the public garbage fund. So Dr. Ruiz decided to run a study of his own. He asked for volunteers from 3 groups white collar prisoners, violent criminals and a control group of ordinary Spaniards and surveyed each on their values and beliefs. The results surprised everyone, he said. We think of these people as ruthless, but thats not how it is, Dr. Ruiz said of white collar criminals. They have the same system of values as any ordinary citizen. Instead, Dr. Ruiz said, corrupt minds have a unique capacity to create exceptions to their own rules, what cognitive psychologists sometimes call moral disengagement. They have intricate ways of explaining away their misdeeds as somehow benefiting others rather than themselves. And Dr. Ruiz found dangerous levels of two other traits in the fraudsters. Egocentrism and narcissism, he said. At first glance, Alburquerque, the corrupt notary in Córdoba who volunteered to be rehabilitated, doesnt appear to have much of either. Hes mild-mannered & speaks in hushed tones even in the loud hubbub of the penitentiary. Its hard to imagine that he pocketed nearly a half-million dollars before he was caught. Here, one has to take responsibility, he said, admitting he had been wrong. But theres more to the story, Alburquerque said. While sums of money may have disappeared under his watch, he had always made sure his employees were highly paid, unlike many other notary offices, he said. He had even attempted to return much of the fraud money before he was caught. Anyone in Córdoba could attest to the fact that he was a key member of the city, he added. I have an advantage over other mortals, but not all, in that I can sleep 5 hours less than others, he said of his work ethic. Always what Ive done is worked and studied. They are words that Yolanda González Pérez, the prison warden, says shes heard before from other white collar criminals who havent fully accepted their crimes. They tell themselves Im not as much of a criminal as the others are, she said. But Ortiz, the director of the Spanish prison system, isnt worried. Hes ready to roll up his sleeves with Alburquerque & other participants who might be willing to rethink their old ways. Maybe a breakthrough will come early on, when according to a summary of the rehab manual, psychiatrists will begin the process of therapeutic alliance to form a bond with the corrupt officials. Or later on in week five, when the inmates will finally take on the subject of developing humility and empathy. It takes patience to change someone, Mr. Ortiz said. We can be working months in these sessions, he said. We just keep at it with the prisoners and well see when the fruit is ripe. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/w...ion-rehab.html |
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