A WORLD OF HUMAN RIGHTS
  • Home
  • Migration & Trafficking
    • Refugees, Asylum seekers & Migrants
    • Human Trafficking & Slavery
  • Security, Peace & Justice
    • Death Penalty, Arbitrary Detention and Torture
    • International Criminal Justice
    • Rule of Law
    • Humanitarian crises
    • Human Rights Defenders
  • Children's rights
  • Civil Rights & Liberties
  • Economic, social & cultural rights
    • Food & Water
    • Sanitation
    • Adequate housing
    • Health
  • Sexual and reproductive health
  • Discrimination
    • Women, Girls & Gender equality
    • Race and national origin
    • Religion
    • Indigenous People
    • LGBTQ
    • Health & Disability
  • Environment
  • Business & Tax
    • Tax Justice & illicit financial flows
    • Business & Human Rights
  • Take action!
  • Free courses
  • About us
    • About our press review
    • Privacy Policy
  • Bibliography
  • Home
  • Migration & Trafficking
    • Refugees, Asylum seekers & Migrants
    • Human Trafficking & Slavery
  • Security, Peace & Justice
    • Death Penalty, Arbitrary Detention and Torture
    • International Criminal Justice
    • Rule of Law
    • Humanitarian crises
    • Human Rights Defenders
  • Children's rights
  • Civil Rights & Liberties
  • Economic, social & cultural rights
    • Food & Water
    • Sanitation
    • Adequate housing
    • Health
  • Sexual and reproductive health
  • Discrimination
    • Women, Girls & Gender equality
    • Race and national origin
    • Religion
    • Indigenous People
    • LGBTQ
    • Health & Disability
  • Environment
  • Business & Tax
    • Tax Justice & illicit financial flows
    • Business & Human Rights
  • Take action!
  • Free courses
  • About us
    • About our press review
    • Privacy Policy
  • Bibliography
A WORLD OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Picture
A WORLD OF HUMAN RIGHTS IS A PRESS REVIEW DEDICATED TO THE STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS WORLDWIDE

How Brazil Facilitates Gang Recruitment

3/23/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
By César Muñoz
On March 22, Brazil’s representatives  will have to explain at a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights why the country maintains some of the most violent and inhumane prisons in Latin America, and why the government has let them fall into the hands of criminal organizations.

You’d expect Brazilian authorities to make regaining control of their prisons a top priority after the series of massacres that left more than 100 inmates dead just two months ago. Instead, state negligence, incompetence, or a lack of political will continue to let gangs use prison cells as recruiting grounds.

An October 2016 report by the Federal Prison Department said that the state government’s failure to provide adequate health, education, work, and legal services to inmates was strengthening the very gangs the prison system is supposed to help crush. The consequences for Brazil reach far beyond the prison walls.

In mid-February, we asked permission to visit the Penitenciária Agrícola de Monte Cristo, the largest prison in the northern state of Roraima, where gang members killed 10 inmates in October and another 33 in January. State authorities candidly shared details about life inside the prison, but refused to let us in, saying they could not ensure our safety. In truth, they can’t ensure anyone’s safety. Only the gangs can do that.

The crumbling Penitenciária Agrícola held 1,511 inmates in February. It was built for 750 but its real capacity could be as low as 300 because successive riots have caused the infrastructure to deteriorate, a judge overseeing the prison told us.  Most of the prisoners spend 24 hours a day in overcrowded, fetid cells, with nothing to do.

Roraima’s statewide prison population has grown by 41 percent in the past 18 months, to 2,300. More than half have not been convicted of a crime, according to state data. Their average wait in prison for trial is more than a year, according to the National Council of Justice.
In January, the judge ordered that the 161 inmates held in a semi-open facility –which allows some of them to go out to work during the day– continue their sentences under house arrest after the prison director said that he was unable to ensure their security or the security of his personnel. 

At Penitenciária Agrícola, since the October killings, guards have only entered the prison grounds twice a day, to bring food. They are protected by a squad of heavily armed military police officers. Any inmate who feels sick in between –or is attacked– may well die.   
       
The two public defenders who represent convicted detainees in all of Roraima’s prisons have been unable to meet with their clients in Penitenciária Agrícola since October, one of them told us. As we have reported elsewhere in Brazil, lack of adequate legal representation means that some cases fall through the cracks, including one man who remained in a Roraima prison for a year after he was awarded parole in 2016.

So who’s in charge? Vicious gangs, who use the prison to recruit members by offering the protection that the state does not.

The Penitenciária Agrícola holds about 500 members of PCC, a prison gang originally from São Paulo, according to prison officials, who ask incoming detainees to declare their gang affiliation so that they can be housed with members of their own gang. Even those who say they belong to no gang are sent to cells with PCC members, allegedly for lack of space, according to prison officials. There, they are under pressure to join.

 The 33 inmates who died in January did not belong to any gang. Members of PCC decapitated all of them as a show of force, prison officials told us.

None of this is exclusive to Roraima. Brazil has more than 622,000 people behind bars – 67 percent over capacity. Holding pretrial detainees with convicted criminals, hideous overcrowding, procedural delays, and gang rule within the cellblocks are common.

A new prison under construction – designed for fewer than 400 inmates – won’t solve the state’s problems. Neither Roraima, nor Brazil, will be able to build enough prisons to end overcrowding if there is no change in current incarceration policies.

Judicial and state authorities should make wider use of alternatives to prison, both for people awaiting trial and those convicted of non-violent offenses, and improve the justice system by ending unjustified delays and increasing the number of public defenders. Most of all, Brazil should abandon its retrograde “war on drugs” policy, which is filling prisons with people detained with small quantities of drugs. Brazil needs to decriminalize drug use.

The recent prison massacres showed the strength of Brazil´s prison gangs. Brazil’s federal and state governments need to demonstrate that they are stronger, and smarter, by overhauling judicial and incarceration systems that now serve no one well except the gangs. The safety of everyone – inside and outside the prison walls – depends on it.

This article was published on Human Rights Watch's website on March 22, 2017.


0 Comments
    Picture


    Tweets by aworldofhr

      GET OUR WEEKLY UPDATE HERE

      Every Wednesday. Concise. Impactful. Ad free :) 
    Subscribe to our Weekly Update

    Categories

    All
    Abortion
    Abortion Ban
    Access To Clean Water
    Adolescents
    Afghanistan
    Africa
    African Child Policy Forum
    African Committee Of Experts On The Rights And Welfare Of The Child
    Age Discrimination
    Algeria
    Anti-terror Laws
    Anti-trafficking Laws
    Arbitrary Arrest
    Arbitrary Detention
    Argentina
    Argentine
    Arms Embargo
    Arms Trade
    Art Censorship
    Artificial Intelligence
    Asylum Seekers
    Australia
    Bahrain
    Bangladesh
    Barbuda
    BNP Paribas
    Brazil
    Brexit
    Britain
    British Red Cross
    Burma
    Business And Human Rights
    Cambodia
    Campaign Against The Arms Trade
    Canada
    Censorship
    Chad
    Chemical Weapons
    Child Brides
    Child Labor
    Child Marriage
    Children
    Children's Rights
    Child Safeguarding
    Child Slavery
    Child Soldiers
    China
    Citizenship
    Civil Rights
    Civil War
    Class-action Lawsuit
    Clean Water
    Climate Change
    Collective Intellectual Property
    Collective Land Ownership
    Consent
    CoreCivic
    Corruption
    Crime Against Humanity
    Criminal Justice
    Death Penalty
    Democratic Republic Of Congo
    Deportation
    Detention
    Developing Countries
    Dictatorship
    Digital Surveillance
    Discrimination
    Domestic Violence
    Egypt
    Elections
    Enforced Disappearances
    Environment
    Environmental Laws
    Eritrea
    Ethiopia
    Ethnic Cleansing
    Ethno-nationalism
    E.U.
    European Union
    Extrajudicial Executions
    Family Reunification
    Famine
    Food Security
    Forced Labor
    Forced Migration
    France
    Fraud
    Free
    Freedom Of Expression
    Freedom Of Religion
    Freedom Of Speech
    Free Media
    Free Speech
    Gambia
    Gang
    Gender Equality
    Gender Pay Gap
    Georgia
    Gilgit-Baltistan
    Girls' Rights
    Guantánamo Bay
    Guantánamo Bay
    Guatemala
    Haiti
    Health Care
    Honduras
    Hong Kong
    Horn Of Africa
    Humanitarian Aid
    Humanitarian Crisis
    Human Rights Abuses
    Human Trafficking
    Hun Sen
    Hygiene
    ICE Detainees
    Ill-treatment
    Immigration
    Impunity
    Incarcerated Women
    India
    Indigenous People
    Indigenous Textiles
    Indigenous Women
    Indonesia
    Industrial Pollution
    Inequalities
    Internally Displaced People
    International Family Tracing
    International Justice
    Internet Freedom
    Iran
    Iraq
    Ireland
    Israel
    Japan
    Joseph Kabila
    Journalism
    Journalists
    Juvenile Criminal System
    Kachin
    Kazakhstan
    Land Rights
    Latin America
    Lawyers
    Lebanon
    LGBTQ
    Libya
    Liu Xia
    Liu Xiaobo
    Lybia
    Madagascar
    Malawi
    María De Jesús Patricio Martínez
    Marriage
    Marriage Equality
    Mass Incarceration
    Mass Surveillance
    Mauritania
    Maya Women
    Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders
    Media Freedom
    Menstrual Hygiene
    Mexico
    Microsoft
    Migrants
    Migrant Workers
    Misuse Of Government Funds
    Modern Slavery
    Money Laundering
    Mozambique
    Myanmar
    Nationality
    Nationality Deprivation
    National Service
    Nepal
    New Zealand
    Nicaragua
    Nigeria
    Nobel Peace Prize
    Northern Ireland
    Northern Triangle Of Central America
    Norway
    Nuclear Arms
    Occupation
    Orphanage Tourism
    Pakistan
    Palestine
    Palestinian Refugees
    Papua New Guinea
    Paraguay
    Peaceful Assembly
    People With Albinism
    Philippines
    Poland
    Police Abuse
    Poverty
    Press Freedom
    Press Law
    Prior And Informed Consent
    Prison
    Privacy
    Private Prison Company
    Race Discrimination
    Racism
    Rakhine State
    Rape Videos
    Refugee Quota
    Refugees
    Refused Asylum Seekers
    Right To A Nationality
    Right To Education
    Right To Protest
    Rohingya
    Rule Of Law
    Rwanda
    Rwandan Genocide
    Same-sex Marriage
    Sanitation
    Saudi Arabia
    Scotland
    Seafood Industry
    Segregation
    Self-censorship
    Senegal
    Sexual And Reproductive Rights
    Sexual Violence
    Shi'a Community
    Slavery
    Smuggling
    Social Media
    Social Security
    Solar Energy
    Somalia
    South Asia
    Southern Poverty Law Center
    South Sudan
    Spain
    Special Rapporteur On The Negative Impact Of The Unilateral Coercive Measures On The Enjoyment Of Human Rights
    Special Rapporteur On The Right To Adequate Housing
    Special Rapporteur On The Right To Development
    Special Rapporteur On The Right To Food
    Special Rapporteur On Toxics
    Stateless
    Supply Chains
    Sustainability Development Solutions Network
    Sustainable Development Goals
    Sweden
    Syria
    Syrian Civil War
    Taiwan
    Tanzania
    Thailand
    Thomson Reuters Foundation
    Tobacco
    Torture
    Transitional Justice
    Transparentem
    Travel Ban
    Trinidad & Tobago
    TripAdvisor
    Turkey
    U.A.E.
    Uganda
    U.K
    Unaccompanied Children
    U.N. General Assembly
    U.N.H.C.R.
    U.N. High Commissioner For Human Rights
    U.N. Human Rights Council
    U.N.I.C.E.F.
    United Arab Emirates
    United Nations
    Universal Periodic Review
    Unlawful Detentions
    U.N. Office For The Coordination Of Humanitarian Affairs
    UNPO
    U.N.R.W.A.
    UNSMIL
    U.N. Special Rapporteur On Racism
    U.N. Women
    U.S.
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    War Cimes
    War Crimes
    WASH
    Welfare System
    Women
    Women's Rights
    Yazidis
    Yemen
    Zimbabwe


    Archives

    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014


    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly