Brazil has the fourth prison population in the world. We have more than half a million prisoners. It is as if all the residents of Aracaju, or twice the population of Iceland, were behind bars.
And we'll explain why this is going wrong. 2 MINUTES TO UNDERSTAND THE PRISON SYSTEM IN BRAZIL The situation of Brazilian prisons is unique. In the world average, for every 100 thousand people, 144 are imprisoned.
Around here, the results double that. In fact, the number of incarcerated people in Brazil has more than tripled in 14 years. Most crimes are drug related, even if the circumstances in which they occur are questionable.
In 74% of the arrests for trafficking in Sao Paulo, the policemen were the only witnesses to the crime. Today, prison cells that are filled with more than 600 thousand people, are made to fit only 371 thousand. That is, 13 people live in a cell made to accomodate 8.
This is the national average of prison occupation. But that number could be a lot smaller. 40% of Brazilian prisoners have not been convicted yet.
In part because there is no one to defend them. There are not enough public defenders. And the ones who don't have the money to pay a lawyer end up rotting.
In Brazil, we only have half of the public defenders needed to meet the demand. Even those caught red-handed end up waiting for up to 136 days for a first hearing. This is a big problem, since almost 40% of them are not sentenced at the end of proceedings.
And despite what a lot of people say, a good bandit is not a dead bandit. Specially because that is a crime. The death penalty does not exist in Brazil, and taking care of the prisoners' well being is among the responsibilities of the Government.
That's law. A law that, in fact, is not being fulfilled. The security of a detainee is almost null.
So much so that if Brazilian prisons formed a country, it would be the third nation with the most proportional homicides in the world. And the problem is not just death. Health conditions are horrendous.
Even with the poor quality of the prison system, all of this is expensive. The cost of an inmate is, on average, R$ 1. 600 per month.
And that cost has no end date. Because of all these problems, Brazilian jails do not play the role that they were supposed to, which is to rehabilitate the detainee to live in society. 70% of them end up commiting crimes again and are - once again - arrested.
At the end of the day, everyone suffers. But specially THEY.
