In the early afternoon of February 18, 2001, during family visiting hours, the biggest prison rebellion in Brazil’s history began in a few prisons in the state of São Paulo. Within hours, as television and radio spread word of the uprising to outlying units, some 28,000 inmates in 29 different prisons had joined in. The inmates took prison guards and hundreds of visiting family members, including children, hostage. In some units, the rebellion was soon contained, in others it extended until the following day. Before it was over, 19 inmates were dead.
The rebellion was a striking symptom of the current crisis in Brazil’s prison system. Corruption and the impunity of police and prison authorities underlie the crisis, making it one that will be difficult to overcome. The system’s chronic problems—torture and maltreatment of inmates, overcrowding, a lack of medical, social and legal assistance for inmates and an insufficient number of work and education programs—have recently been compounded by a mushrooming prison population and the emergence of organized crime groups within the prisons. A lack of official diligence in combating violence inside the prisons has also resulted in a recent increase in killings of inmates by other inmates.
The rate of incarceration has soared over the last three decades: In 1969, Brazil had 30 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, by 1995 it had reached a rate of 95.4 per 100,000. More remarkable is that in the year 2000 this rate reached 134.9, indicating a growth of 41% in the rate of incarceration over a period of five years. Brazil’s prison population now stands—as of December 2000—at around 212,000 inmates. The causes of this rapid growth include increasing crime rates combined with the public’s ready acceptance of the argument that harsher sentences are a deterrent to crime
In Brazil, the federal government does not have its own prison system; the states are responsible for the police and penitentiary systems. In the face of the rapid increase in the prison population, state governments have not been able to respond to the demand for an increasing number of new cells. Overcrowded prisons contribute to violations of inmates’ rights specified in Brazilian laws as well as international treaties. Some prisons house three-to-five-times more inmates than their capacity. Overcrowding means basic living conditions like hygiene and air quality are deteriorating in many prisons and prisoners’ daily existence is full of internal tensions. Overcrowding fuels escape attempts and mass rebellions. Brazilian inmates also routinely face more serious threats: torture and even death.
Although the process of democratization began in the early 1980s, Brazilian police and the prison systems have shown themselves reluctant to change the authoritarian practices inherited from the period of military dictators. These include torture and summary execution of criminals and suspects being held in police custody. Police violence against citizens is common: In 1998, the São Paulo police killed 525 citizens; in 1999, the number increased to 664, according to the São Paulo police ombudsman. Police sometimes torture suspected criminals in order to obtain information and confession; inmates who break prison rules are subject to degrading, inhumane and illegal punishment like being locked up in dark, unventilated cells without sanitary facilities or food. After prison rebellions are contained, police or prison staff often beat and humiliate prisoners and destroy their personal belongings. Despite the fact that Brazil has specific laws against torture, these have not been enforced, as a United Nations report and the government itself have recently recognized. Existing mechanisms for reporting and verifying such practices are still tenuous and often ineffective in punishing those responsible for abuses.
Killings of one inmate by another are also increasing, a consequence of the lack of effective oversight, as well as the increased activity by criminal gangs inside the prisons, especially in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Official government data on such killings is scanty, but the Teotônio Vilela Commission for Human Rights, a non-governmental organization, uses press accounts to collect data on prison deaths and reports that such deaths have increased over the last five years. Of the 156 cases of prisoner death the Commission collected in 2000, only 16 inmates died as a result of police action during escape attempts or rebellion. The other 140 deaths were homicides committed among inmates—at a rate of 0.6 per 1,000 inmates, at least 8 times the rate in North American prisons.
In some Brazilian states the situation is even worse. Official data from the state of São Paulo, whose prisons hold 40% of Brazil’s inmates, show 42 homicides in a population of 33,382 inmates in 1996, a rate of 1.25 per 1,000. Many of these deaths result when no safe place within the prison is provided for inmates who were convicted of sexual or other crimes considered especially reprehensible by other inmates, or when rival inmates and groups are placed in the same units or halls. Homicides among prisoners are increasingly connected to conflicts between organized criminal gangs for hegemony and control over the mass of inmates and over illegal activities inside prisons, such as traffic in drugs, firearms, and other contraband. The inmates buy and use cell phones to order criminal activities from inside. There is much evidence of official corruption, of influence peddling, and of official collusion with or indifference to criminal activity.
Powerful members of criminal groups involved with drug trafficking, bank robberies, freight robberies and fraud find it relatively easy to buy their way out of police precincts, local jails and even penitentiaries. A commission set up by the São Paulo State House of Representatives verified that in the last five years 31% of accused drug traffickers detained in police precincts and in public jails under police administration had escaped. In the prison system, between 1998 and 1999, 210 inmates involved in trafficking had the same success. The commission said that the police and prison authorities do sometimes investigate charges of corruption within their ranks, but few of those found responsible are ever punished. In general, there is a strong esprit de corps that protects corrupt police and officials. What’s more, conservative state governments, authoritarian and little interested in the protection of human rights, do not create or stimulate active mechanisms for the examination of irregularities. Many believe that the São Paulo prison rebellion of last February could not have become so massive, involving so many prisons and so many thousands of inmates, without the participation of criminal groups as well as corrupt officials.
Although in some units the revolt probably spread spontaneously, fed by widespread prisoner discontent, in others a criminal group called Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) may have organized and sparked the rebellion. Formed in 1993, this group has reportedly been responsible for earlier rebellions in São Paulo state prisons, though the authorities have previously minimized its role and level of influence. In this case, it became evident that the group had power inside the biggest prison system in the country, and state and federal authorities were forced to recognize that power and take a series of measures to combat the group’s activities. There is also some speculation that sectors of the prison staff, unhappy with the political orientation of the administration, may have been in collusion with rebellion organizers in some prison units.
The crisis in the prison system has deepened in recent years, and its resolution depends on initiatives that go beyond an increase in the number of new cells. More is needed in the way of legal aid, productive activities and educational opportunities for inmates. More training for police and correction officers might reduce the level of abuse in the prisons. But the greatest challenge is to implement initiatives that reach to the roots of the problem; if the law is to be effectively used to rein in those state agents guilty of torture, indifference, or collusion with criminal activities inside prisons, a way must be found to overcome the resistance of police and prison guards to function as part of a democratic society.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fernando Salla is Senior Researcher at the Center for the Study of Violence, University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is the author of As Prisões em São Paulo, 1822-1940 (Annablume, 1999). Translated from the Portuguese by Andrea Kouklanakis.
