Overcrowded, filthy and violent. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report “Real Dungeons: Juvenile Detention in the State of Rio de Janeiro,” released on December 7, casts a grim picture on the state of adolescent detention centers in Rio de Janeiro. The Department of Socio-Educational Action (DEGASE), the authority responsible for maintaining the centers, reacted to the report with surprise and anger.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 53 people between August 2003 and November 2004, including detained adolescents and parents and DEGASE agents. Human Rights Watch Child Rights Division lawyer Michael Bochenek, research co-ordinator, visited five institutions between July and November 2003. The main complaint made by DEGASE is that research was conducted last year and the report was published in 2004.
“The visits were carried out during a difficult year, with 14 rebellions. We opened our doors to the researchers and they published results one year after, as if they were up-to-date,” complained DEGASE director Sérgio Novo during a tour of the reformed Padre Severino Institute. According to Novo, nearly 80% of the centres were reformed since last year.
“The issue is not just painting and improving the visual aspect of the centres, but changing the overall philosophy,” said Bochenek, who returned to Brazil to launch the report and to investigate new complaints made in juvenile detention centres in the city of Belem. “Our visits were made during last year but the fire that destroyed Santo Expedito happened in 2002. Any way, it is worrying that in all this time, nothing was done,” said the researcher, who did not rule out new visits to DEGASE centres in Rio.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, the majority of complaints of mistreatment are not investigated and no DEGASE employee has ever been held accountable for abuse. “At the most, they are transferred,” said Bochenek.
Divided according to drug faction
The researchers visited a total of five institutions – Padre Severino, Belford Roxo, Santos Dumont, Santo Expedito and João Luís Alves. In all five detained adolescents told of verbal abuse, beatings and arbitrary punishment. “The guards have no respect,” said one of the youth interviewed by HRW. “They talk about socio-educational measures, but this has nothing to do with education,” said another.
Over one third of the more than 1,700 young people between the ages of 12 and 21 currently detained in DEGASE centres are charged with drug offences, including drug trafficking. Within the centres, they are divided up according to which drug faction dominates the region that they are from – which is also the case for those who carried out an infraction that is not related to the drug trade.
The 60-page report – with photos revealing conditions within the institutions – also criticises the federal government, saying that the plan of action of the Lula administration on child and adolescent rights has “still not been fully carried out.”
Brazil’s national juvenile justice law is considered “one of the most progressive in Latin America.” However, according to HRW, many states are not in compliance with the statute.
(Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”)
Situation in Brazil
