Historical Image of the Day

Prison strapped down for execution in electric chair, Sing Sing Prison, circa 1900

Historical Image of the Day

 

Old Montana Prison, Deer Lodge, Montana

Historical Image of the Day

Aftermath of Attica Prison revolt, New York, 1971

Reports on Police Violence and Prison Conditions in Brazil

In yet even more cheerful news from Brazil, Human Rights Watch once again put Brazil on its list for police violence.

According to NGO Human Rights Watch, an alarming number of police killings have gone unpunished in Brazil. Police officers from the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have killed more than 11,000 people since 2003.

Most of these killings are claimed to have been “resistance” killings — those that occur when police officers return fire in self-defense. Police officials say these killings are in resistance to gangs linked to drug trafficking.

However, Human Rights Watch says otherwise. The group led a two-year investigation, called Lethal Force, that focused on 51 such killings and found evidence that police officers often took steps to cover up the true nature of the deaths.

This should come as no surprise to people familiar with Brazil or regular readers here. The solution, according to HRW, is to appoint independent investigators and prosecutors to focus on the extrajudicial killings. That would be nice, and there have been some forays into prosecutorial action and even some newer tactics within police forces, but with the broader lack of concern about the fate of the poor in Brazil and the deep-seated impunity most police have enjoyed, nothing short of a massive and complete overhaul of the police system, structure, and workforce forced upon Rio from the federal government will accomplish an eradication of this, and that simply isn't happening for obvious logistical reasons.

Nor is that the only problem facing Brazil, in terms of policing and human rights. A British journalist had the chance to see some of the prison conditions in Brazil, and he learned firsthand that they were nothing short of appalling. In addition to the horrible crowding and understaffing, there are broader fundamental problems:

Many of the people being held have only been charged with extremely minor offences – such as shoplifting – but administrative inefficiencies in the conduct of trials means that it is not uncommon for them to spend longer on remand than their final sentence. Many should not even be there at all. The Brazilian judiciary have recently reopened the files in a number of states and found that around 20% of the people currently in prison should be released and a further 30% moved to lower security.

Locking up petty thieves with hardened killers also provides the gangs with a steady stream of new recruits. Their leaders are responsible for the day to day administration of many prisons, controlling the distribution of food, medicine, and hygiene kits and enforcing whatever internal discipline exists. Two and half years ago the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), São Paulo's most powerful crime gang, launched a series of co-ordinated attacks against police officers and prison staff in a protest over prison conditions, which resulted in around 450 killings. The PCC was initially formed by a group of prisoners to "avenge the death of 111 prisoners" who were killed during the suppression of a prison protest in 1992.

As Foley points out, this also needs major reforming, which is easy to say and hard to do. I think prison reform in Brazil has a better chance to be accomplished fairly quickly in comparison to police reform. Either way, though, in spite of Brazil's recent growth, expansion, and success in the international arena, it is still very difficult to be either poor or a criminal in Brazil, and there is little hope that the basic structural situation facing those groups is going to improve anytime soon.

Chile, Panama Lead Latin America in Incarceration Rates; Brazil Still Has Highest Total Number

While not as high as the U.S., a recent study has shown that Chile and Panama have the highest rates of imprisoned among their populations, with rates of 310 and 275 per 100,000, respectively. And I admit, I was somewhat surprised - I had expected Brazil to be higher (though it is fifth, with 226 per 100,000, behind El Salvador and Uruguay). On the other end of the spectrum, Bolivia has the lowest rates (85 per 100,000), followed by Guatemala (88), Paraguay (100), Ecuador (118), and Nicaragua (120).

Of course, extrapolating that data to actual population stats, Brazil's prison population is quantitatively higher than any other country in Latin America. What's more, statistics don't reveal the appalling conditions of Brazilian prisons (or elsewhere - I can't help but think that, with overcrowding going well above 120%, Panamanian prisons are also in bad shape). The report also makes several other observations that should be common sense, but still need to be said: that the crime rates are due to socio-economic factors like wide gaps between wealthy and poor, and not to a breakdown in societal morals; or that the death penalty (used in Guatemala and the U.S.) does not deter violent crime. I don't know if this report will accomplish any real change, but it does highlight the problems facing many countries in how to deal with crime, the appalling conditions many prisoners are facing, and the need to push hard for basic human rights for prisoners, too, no matter how heinous the crime.

Historical Image of the Day

In Erik's brief absence, I miss the Historical Images, so am posting them myself until his return.

A panopticon-style prison. I'm unsure of if this is real or a conception. Originally designed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th Century, the structure is designed to watch prisoners without them knowing they are being watched. Often conceived with one-way glass.

More on Jails and Police Impunity in Brazil

I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but the NY Times has finally gotten around to putting up an article that actually has some extra info not available the first time the story made its way into the North American media. For those who missed this the first time around, a 15-year-old girl was accused of petty theft, and ended up in a prison with grown men, where for almost 4 weeks, she was tortured and raped, sometimes in exchange for food, sometimes for no reason, by her male cellmates. Police not only ignored her screams for help, they shaved her head to make her look like a boy and now, in one of the worst "defenses" for any event ever, are saying it's not their fault because she has lied about being only 13.

I've written often about the horrible police system that employs murder and torture with impunity in Brazil often, but usually in the context of favelas in Rio (see here, here, and here, for example). However, it should be clear that the problem with police in Brazil is not a Rio-only or favela-only issue. They have employed torture against prisoners (particularly the darker-skinned and poorer) since at least the late-19th century (and that doesn't include slavery, which was only abolished in 1888 but which has undoubtedly had a direct social role on the presence of torture to this date). Prisoners' rights are thrown out the window in a double-standard system in which the wealthy and well-off can serve their time without ever actually going to jail (and that's only IF they are brought to trial, which in itself is extremeley rare) while the poor languish in overcrowded prisons, subject to gang violence, police violence, torture, and inhumane conditions.

And the police continue to act with impunity across the country. In this particular case, the girl and her family have been forced to relocate under a federal witness protection agency due to death threats they have received from the police, who have threatened to kill members of her family if the family doesn't "admit" the girl is 19 or 20. Indeed, when the story first broke, her father said he was told he would be killed if he didn't get the document "proving" her age to be 19 or 20, to which he said (via the media), "How can I give them a document that doesn't exist?" And the worst part in all of this is, while I have no doubt the federal government is sincere in its concern over this case and its broader implications for Brazil's prison system, the atrocities are so deep and so long-standing and institutionalized that I just really don't see any changes coming in a long time, if ever.

The Appalling Conditions of Prisons in Brazil

Over the weekend, news came out about reports that a 15 year old girl who had been arrested in the northern state of Pará had been repeatedly abused and raped by police in return for food.
The story is atrocious, but just one more appalling report on what may very well be one of the worst prison systems in the world, between the overcrowding, the corruption (political and police), the gang violence within the prisons, the extremely-unequal treatment (the wealthy rarely go to prison for the same crimes that land the poor in jail for 10-30 years), and the torture and abuse of prisoners. Randy goes into depth here, and has some excellent commentary well worth checking out.

Like Randy, I'm extremely skeptical that the case will be sufficiently investigated and those responsible dealt with appropriately. The only thing I would add to Randy's commentary is that the fact that anything will be done is reduced even further by two factors. First, the girl is most likely poor (charging a teen with theft and throwing them in jail is generally treatment only the poor, who have little-to-no recourse to serious legal aid, receive). Thus, her probable class status makes punishment extremely unlikely. Added to this, Pará is one of the few strongholds of the old political model of coronelismo, in which local landed elites and politicians are in bed together (or even one and the same), and are basically able to manipulate local politics in ways they see as optimal to their own interests. While this model is no way as strong as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries, it hasn't gone away from the North, and quite frankly, I just don't see the political and landed elites really mustering up much more outrage than to verbally condemn the act once and then forget about it. The report is extremely disturbing, and it is frustrating that these conditions exist in Brazil. Given the extreme apathy and even open antipathy among the middle-class, elites, and politicians throughout the country towards the poor and towards criminals among here, the most frustrating aspect to me is that there is no evidence or sign that anything will even change in the slightest to address the extremely serious prison problem here.

Don't Be A Jerk When Boarding a Plane for London

Writer Peter Kurth relays the harrowing tale of his ill-fated flight to London in which, after acting like a complete American jerk, was incarcerated in London's Wormwood Scrubs on charges of endangerment (and various other vagueries). It's both a sad and enfuriating story told mainly in excerpts from a diary he kept during his two month stay, one where an openly gay, HIV-positive man is placed among some of London's worst criminals for having a nearly expired passport, having a father who converted to Islam, and the aforementioned jerkery. Very scary stuff....