The Brazilian Penitentiary System under the Threat of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to identify the chief factors behind the incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths inside the Brazilian prison system, testing the hypotheses that better equipped and better-staffed systems and the adoption of the prophylactic measures lead to lower incidence and death rates. Results show partial support for these expectations, as certain infrastructure-related measures such as the number of medical appointments held at the prison facility, the percentage of establishments not directly managed by the State, and the number of laboratory tests by inmate are statistically associated with the number of recorded COVID-19 cases. In turn, the number of provisional detainees, and the percentage of prison units without educational facilities are significant predictors of COVID-19 deaths. Nonetheless, not a single measure adopted to prevent COVID-19 inside prisons and jails stood the empirical testing. These results have important policy and research implications.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• Pandemic
• Alternatives to incarceration
• Early release mechanisms
• Prison reform

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Available at: http://depen.gov.br/DEPEN/depen/sisdepen/infopen/bases-de-dados/bases-de-dados, accessed on September 7^th.

2. Available at https://www.gov.br/depen/pt-br/assuntos/acoes-contra-pandemia/covid-19-painel-de-monitoramento-dos-sistemas-prisionais, accessed on September 7^th.

3. See Henderson and Denison (1989) and Thayer (2002) for further details.

4. In the database provided by the Ministry of Justice and Public Safety, the number of detainees, vacancies, and services made available by inmates in each of these five federal penitentiaries could be aggregated at the state level. Also, the measures adopted to prevent COVID-19 are the same enforced by each Brazilian state. As a result, the federal penitentiaries are not going to be analyzed as a separate “system”, but as part of the state system on where they are built.

5. It is important to note that LEP made a distinction between jails (designed to house provisional inmates) and prisons (designed to house the sentenced inmates). However, on a daily basis this distinction does not apply and several provisional detainees are housed in prisons and vice-versa (Darke, 2013). The overcrowding that affects the Brazilian penitentiary system does not allow a proper distinction on the use of vacancies available (Dias, 2017).

6. According to Mariner and Cavallaro (1998, p. 29), the prison regime progression in Brazil can be described as follows: “first, the sentencing judge should consider the defendant’s individual circumstances in imposing the sentence. Thus, for example, the question of whether a prisoner is a recidivist or a first-time offender is relevant in deciding whether he is sentenced to a closed prison, to an open facility, or to community service. Second, the judge of penal execution should continually monitor the prisoner’s case while he is imprisoned, adjusting the terms of sentence according to the prisoner’s conduct. Normally, a prisoner who begins his sentence in a closed prison should, after he has served part of his sentence, be transferred to a semi-open facility and from there, after further time has passed, to an open facility, and finally to release into society. In sum, this view of incarceration sees it as a dynamic process, not simply a fixed term of years.” It means that a detainee sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment should be held in closed regime for 10 years, then transferred to a semi-open regime for 10 years and finally released in a system similar to parole. The laws approved in the last 30 years changed this system, making these detainees serve most of their sentences in closed regime.

7. They are not granted a progression to semi open regime or open regime, having to spend most of their sentences in maximum security prisons.

8. Under terrible detention conditions, inmates are more prone to engage in illicit activities hoping to achieve a better life not only for them but also for their families (Biondi, 2016; Feltran, 2012).

9. According to Feltran (2012), Dias and Salla (2013), Biondi (2016), Manso and Dias (2017), and Duarte and de Araújo (2020) among others, increasing the number of people behind bars, the prison’s situation became worse in the country. As a result, the discourse of the PCC that criminals should be aligned and tied up in a network to fight against the state (always referred to as the system) became even more convincing. The expansion of this network was carried out with the policies implemented by the Brazilian authorities. Usually, after a rebellion, a PCC’s leader would be transferred to a different Brazilian state to reduce its influence in the system. The side effect was exactly what the authorities were aiming to contain. Once inside a new detention center, the leaders would introduce the slogan of this organization, promising better living conditions for inmates and their families. For those interested in engaging it, the PCC leaders would baptize several inmates, making them part of this criminal organization. This is how PCC spread all over the country. In 2005, PCC was present in approximately 90% of prison units in the state of São Paulo, as well as in most urban areas with detention facilities (Biondi & Marques, 2010). By the end of 2016, PCC has entrenched in most Brazilian states, except for Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro (Manso & Dias, 2017). However, it is worth highlighting that PCC does not control the majority of jails and prisons in the country (Duarte & de Araújo, 2020).

10. According to the rebellion database that the Federal University of Minas Gerais is constructing throughout the news about the relationship between COVID-19 and riots inside the Brazilian penitentiary system. The consultation to this database was carried out on August 4^th, 2020.

11. Brazil does not have a risk assessment tool for prisoner release, being up to the judges to decide on this issue based on the time served by the detainee and the inmate previous behavior.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico.