Bar Association: Brazil's prisons ruled by criminal gangs
Following a riot that left at least 56 dead at Anísio Jobim prison complex (COMPAJ) in Manaus, North Brazil, the national president of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), Claudio Lamachia, said the government needs to regain control of the country's prisons from criminal gangs.
President of the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), Claudio Lamachia(left),
According to Lamachia, news reports on the riot reveal that brutality has become part of everyday life in Brazil's prison system and the latest episode is “nothing new”—similar incidents have taken place in Maranhão, Pernambuco and Roraima in recent years. “The Brazilian State has to meet its responsibility of addressing this problem with a sense of its urgency and solve it as soon as possible, rather than come up with workaround solutions that only conceal it,” he said in a statement.
The bar leader pointed out that a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows law enforcement authorities to execute a sentence before a case has been fully prosecuted (res judicata)—ie before reaching a final point where no further appeals can be filed—only worsens the prison conditions with the incarceration of innocent people, especially the most vulnerable, underprivileged defendants, thus increasing the prison population and raising tensions inside already-overcrowded prisons.
In his opinion, higher courts should speed up their proceedings and handle rulings on habeas corpus and appeals as top priority in order to avoid prolonging potentially unfair imprisonment.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Bar Association: Brazil's prisons ruled by criminal gangs
