Flora and Fauna

Nature in Latin America
Winter 2005

Prison riot at the Benfica house of detention in Rio de Janeiro

The Vicious Violence Circle
Marie-Eve Sylvestre

To talk about State violence and repression in Brazil, and in particular in the state of Rio de Janeiro, is to make an understatement. Corruption, fraud, slave labor, lack of access to health care and education services, police brutality towards street children and bad treatments inflicted to adolescents inside juvenile facilities are all too common. According to UNESCO, in 2002, there were 35 million young people living in Brazil and 7 million did not work or study while another 49,000 were murdered1. The State of Rio de Janeiro has the highest youth homicide rate in the country (118.9 per 100,000 inhabitants) and the highest homicide rate amongst the population as a whole (56.5 per 100,000 inhabitants)2. In 2003, the police alone killed 1,195 civilians reaching an average of 3.2 civilians killed every day3 and most of these killings occurred in shantytowns and in the most impoverished suburbs4.

The prison conditions just comes along as another example of that violence against the young and the poor: 54.2% of the Brazilian prison population is under the age of thirty years old, 10.4% are analphabets, 69.5% have not completed elementary school, and 98% of inmates lived in poor or modest economic conditions prior to their arrest5. On any given Sunday, there are some 300 mothers and wives leaving the Caju shantytown to visit their husbands and sons in Bangu Prison Complex. According to United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nigel Rodley, in prisons and other detention centers, torture is "widespread and systematic". 6 It is used by guards and other officials as punishment for improper behavior, but also as a means of ensuring authority and control over the increasing prison population7. Prisons conditions are notoriously harsh and riots often arise.

I was working at the Global Justice Center, a Brazilian human rights NGO when the prison rebellion at the Benfica House of Detention begun on May 29, 2004. During the 62 hours that the riot lasted, 88 inmates escaped, 30 more were killed, many others were seriously injured, and one prison guard was murdered. It was Rio's most violent prison riot and the third in importance in Brazil after Carandiru, São Paulo and Urso Branco, Maranhão.

The circumstances in which the killings were perpetrated are absolutely horrible. Inmates identified with one criminal gang (Red Commando) murdered other inmates identified with a second criminal gang (Third Commando). Before they were killed by the leaders of the Red Commando, the inmates were accused and tried before a fake tribunal. The "judges" (the leaders of the Red Commando) sentenced the "accused" inmates to death by torture or offered redemption through bad treatments, humiliation and conversion to the Red Commando. According to the local newspapers, the torture sessions were accompanied by evangelical chorals to prevent guards, police officers and negotiators from hearing the cries and tears of the victims. Weeks after the events, the police were still unable to identify all the victims because many of them were intensively wounded or mutilated.

In the hours following the riot, I, and other members of the organizations working closely with prisoners, struggled hard to make sense of this tragedy and to understand how, as a society or as human beings, we create conditions in which such barbaric acts are possible. Here are a few elements of response.

First, the State's contribution to violence is striking. Several months before the events occurred in Benfica, many human rights organizations warned the government about the dangers of mixing members of different criminal gangs in the same prison blocks. Several inmates interviewed by our organization already predicted the bloodshed. Yet, mixing members of different criminal gangs was part of a new strategy adopted by Rio de Janeiro State Governor, Anthony Garotinho. He argued that the objective was to neutralize gang action and power in the prison system. There are many reasons to be skeptical of his position. The State itself classifies inmates by criminal gangs. Despite the fact that most inmates have no affiliation or relationship with drug traffickers or criminal gangs, the Police classify inmates into one gang or another on the basis of their home address i.e. corresponding to the gang controlling the drug market in the shantytown where they usually come from. Thus, if the objective is to reduce gang power, the State should review its own policy in the first place. Second, it seems obvious that by putting eight times more members of the Red Commando than of the Third Commando in the same block at Benfica, we exacerbated the tensions and the fear among prisoners and put at risk the lives of hundreds of inmates and prison guards.

Further, although Benfica was a new jail (it was inaugurated one month before the riot on April 5, 2004), it presented many serious problems of administration, infrastructure and security. On May 11, 2004, during a visit of the Community Council, who has legal jurisdiction to monitor prison facilities in Rio de Janeiro8, the prison director reported that some parts of the prison had already collapsed, that water was infiltrating and that bars were missing in many windows as they were used by inmates to make weapons. Moreover, there were a total of four guards and 25 retired military police officers with no specific training at all times to look over some 862 inmates. The prisoners reported various acts of torture, lack of resources (paper, soap, mattresses, etc), increasing feelings of insecurity due to gang mixing in the same units, to the proximity of many shantytowns controlled by the Red Commando, and to the fact that the military police let weapons circulated in the prison9.

We can also find many answers by looking into public opinion and discourse about prisoners or criminals in Rio de Janeiro (and certainly by drawing some parallels with public discourse in the United States and elsewhere). Repression and violence is made possible by the fact that the public is persuaded that it is justified and deserved. This belief is partly sustained by the idea that poor criminals are predators and devils of some sort rather than human beings. The press coverage surrounding Benfica's riot is extremely telling. The riot ended after 62 hours of negotiations between the military police chief negotiators and members of civil society. As they reached an agreement (the negotiators promised not to retaliate against the leaders of the Red Commando if they were to surrender themselves) and as they were about to enter the premises for inspection, the negotiators suddenly received orders from the State Governor. Mr. Garotinho ordered the evacuation of the prison and prevented the monitoring authorities from doing their inspection. After the prison was emptied, a helicopter arrived on the scene with Military Police Officers and Marcos Pereira da Silva, a Pastor from the Evangelical Church. Entering the prison premises, the Pastor claimed to be arriving right on time to do a "Satan show", since there was great need for "saving the lost inmates' souls" and for "exorcising the devil". The next day, local and national newspapers reported that the State had lost control over crime and violence in Rio de Janeiro, but that its population could be grateful to the Evangelical Church for putting back some humanity in the place. Some days later, the newspapers not only retracted themselves and explain that the riot was fully handled by professionals and members of the civil society, but also revealed that Pastor da Silva was under investigation for laundering drug trafficking money and, thus, raised doubts as to his real intentions where entering the premises with the Governor's complicity.

The possible Governor's involvement with drug trafficking is scandalous, of course, and gives an idea of the level of corruption reigning in the country. But this is not my only point here. I also mean to say that when the local newspapers report the grandiose salvation operation effectuated by Pastor Marcos Pereira da Silva from the Evangelical Church, literally coming down from the sky in his helicopter to save these "devils", it is not without consequences on public opinion. Indeed, in addition to discrediting the work of organizations and of professional negotiators, this operation had the effect of further demonizing the inmates and the criminals in the population's eyes. It contributed to creating the false impression that inmates are barbaric "others" who kill themselves at the first occasion and thus deserved to be imprisoned, tortured or killed. Yet, this is of course not the reality.

To counter repression, it is important to understand that the inmates are not the monsters and the devils that the State governor and the general population supporting harsh criminal law policies too often like to believe. First, all the individuals killed at Benfica were in preventive detention i.e. they were waiting for their trial and were still considered innocent under the law. Further, in the days following the events, national newspapers reported the story of David de Paula Pereira, 24 years old, homeless and mentally ill, who was arrested after having shot rocks at parked cars in a street of Copacabana in March 2004 and that of nine other young men accused of theft or robberies in the south zone of Rio (including theft of a pair of running shoes (Francisco da Costa), robbery of a tourist backpack (Leomel Gregório), robbery of a cell phone (Alessandro da Silva), attempted robbery of a watch and of one real (Wagner Souza Santos) and other robbery of 52 reais (Carlos Alvarenga).10 Among the 20 victims identified by the police, 19 were under 30 years old, 3 were homeless men, 17 were accused of non violent crimes (foremost, drug-associated crimes and theft in rich neighborhoods), at least 3 had serious mental health problems, and none of them had any relationship or association with the criminal gangs.

We should also note that all killed and tortured inmates were extremely poor individuals since the rich and powerful inmates were kept under custody in a special prison unit. Thanks to Brazilian laws11, elite members of Brazilian society, including judges, lawyers, government officials, police officers, and every person with a university degree, have the right to a special prison, separate from poorer inmates, with several privileges and general detention "conditions that are adequate to human dignity". Among those kept in this special prison in Benfica, there were 2 persons accused of embezzlement for a total of US$ 33 million.

This being said, we must face the extreme violence with which the killings were perpetrated by inmates and ask ourselves where it comes from. In doing this exercise, one cannot but start thinking about how violence inflicted upon young Brazilian men in the streets, in their home communities, in the workplaces, in the criminal justice system and in the prisons, has not somehow been learned and reproduced. In poor young men's lives, violence is omnipresent. Life in the shantytowns (favelas) is a daily struggle against terror. And it starts very early in the morning. For instance, in Manguinhos, a favela in the center of Rio, some military police officers working under the command of Lt. Robson enter the community and start threatening their inhabitants a little before 9AM. Young men are been accused of being drug traffickers on the way to school, residents are threatened and old people brutalized. Often, with no reason, houses are searched and drug is deliberately put on the kitchen table by police officers to extort money in exchange for their liberty. Most days in June and July 2004, the police left the community with yet one more dead body behind them. Their modus operandi is well-known in the community: they enter the town only during the day as they are afraid of confrontations with traffickers at night, they routinely shoot one or two young men and, upon realizing that they were mistaken on the identity of the victim or upon seeing too many witnesses around, they put a weapon in the hands of the dead victim to justify the aggression. They then go back to the police station and file a report according to which they had to kill the victim as he resisted to his arrest (auto de resistência). The young men who flee from the community and end up in youth shelters do not have better lives. Torture is part of their daily routine in juvenile facilities. Not to mention those who live in the streets. Soon enough, the criminal justice system inevitably falls on them and condemns them for drug possession or traffic or robbery. In this context, the fake tribunal constituted by the inmates to sentence others to death by torture suddenly appears like a caricature of our state and legal institutions: violence reproducing itself in an endless vicious circle.

Despite having attracted huge international attention, the State refused to conduct any serious investigation to identify the persons responsible for this tragedy and, to this day, it did not review its policy to classify inmates by criminal gangs and to let them cohabit in the same prison blocks12. Instead, the government decided to close Benfica and to transfer the surviving prisoners to other prison units. As a result, only in June and July 2004, there were four other incidents in Rio's prisons causing further deaths and injuries13. Asked to comment the situation, Astério Pereira, State Secretary for the Prison System, washed his hands and blamed the press for alimenting gang power in saying that "some reporters should go through an episode such as that of Tim Lopes"13, referring to a reporter who was assassinated in June 2002 by drug traffickers in Rio. When violence and repression is all a society has to offer, it should come as no surprise that it is then learned and reproduced behind prison walls.

  1. UNESCO, Mapa da Violência IV: Jovens do Brasil, 2004.
  2. Id.
  3. Global Justice Center, Annual Report 2003: Human Rights in Brazil, chapter 3 - Police Violence, p 45.
  4. In 2003, 92% of the homicides committed in the city of Rio de Janeiro occurred in the West and North Zones where there is a high concentration of poor populations: Weekly Bulletin, Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro, December 2003. See also O Globo Newspaper, Natanael Damasceno, "PM que mata está no subúrbio" ("Military Police Who Kill is in the Suburbs"), September 14, 2004.
  5. Elementary school in Brazil (primeiro grau) goes up to Grade 9. Global Justice Center, Annual Report 2003: Human Rights in Brazil, p. 22, referring to a study by the Center on Security and Citizenship, Cândido Mendes University, Rio de Janeiro.
  6. United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, Civil and Political Rights including the Questions of Torture and Detention, Report of the Special Rapporteur Nigel Rodley, March 2001, par. 166.
  7. Id., par. 157 and subs. See also Global Justice Center, Annual Report 2003: Human Rights in Brazil, chapter 1.
  8. Penal Execution Act, 7.210/84, ss. 80-81, (Lei das Execuções penais)
  9. Community Council of Rio de Janeiro, Visit report, May 11, 2004 (on file with the author)
  10. O Globo Newspapers, June 20, 2004, "No lugar errado, na hora errada" (At the wrong place, at the wrong moment) by Antônio Werneck and Gustavo Goulart, p. 31
  11. Section 295, Brazilian Code of Criminal Procedure and Decree no. 38.016 (October 1955).
  12. For example, human rights organizations sent several warnings concerning the situation at the Prison Complex of Bangu.
  13. Including two rebellions at Frei Caneca in June and July causing the death of one inmate and leaving nine other injured, one rebellion at the Magé House of Detention causing the death of one female prisoner, and the escape of 8 inmates from the Prison Ary Franco.
  14. Comments made at public hearings organized by the civil society. Translated from the Portuguese: "passar por um episódio como aquele do Tim Lopes".
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