Brazil’s justice minister has described his country’s violent and overcrowded prison system as “terrible” and warned that it will only get worse if congress votes this week to lower the age of criminal responsibility.
José Eduardo Cardozo ordered the early publication of a justice ministry report on prison overcrowding ahead of a vote on Tuesday over legislation which would reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 for serious offences involving violence.
The new statistics show that Brazil’s prison population has doubled in the last 10 years and now contains more than 220,000 inmates over its capacity. Lowering the age of criminal responsibility will add up to 40,000 more inmates to the system, Cardozo said.
Brazil has the world’s fourth-largest prison population, after the US, China and Russia, but while the number of prisoners in those countries has declined over recent years, in Brazil it grew by 33% between 2008 and 2014.
“I thought it was right to bring forward this report [on prison overcrowding] so that congress and society can discuss … the profound deterioration in the prison system that would result from a reduction in the age of criminal responsibility,” he said.
But recent high-profile media coverage of a brutal gang-rape in the state of Piauí and the murder of a cyclist in Rio – both allegedly committed by minors – has fuelled public outrage over the apparent impunity of underage criminals. A Datafolha poll published on 21 June found that 87% of Brazilians approve of a reduction.
Both supporters and opponents of the legislation believe it is likely to pass.
The bill’s sponsor, Laerte Bessa, a congressman from the Partido da República (PR), said: “The law is a good law that will end the sense of impunity in our country.”
The congressman sees this legislation as the first step towards further reductions in the age of criminal responsibility. “In another 20 years we will reduce it to 14, then 12.”
Although he accepted that the change in the law would lead to a short-term increase in Brazil’s prison population, Bessa expressed hope that in the long-run science would resolve the country’s high levels of criminality.
“One day, we will get to a stage in which we are able to determine whether a child in the womb has criminal tendencies and if it does the mother won’t be allowed to give birth,” he said.
The bill proposes housing convicted adolescents in separate prison wings from adults, but critics are sceptical that this would happen in practice.
Around 40% of the inmates in Brazil’s prisons are awaiting trial. The accused are often imprisoned together with the convicted, in violation of international law, according to César Muñoz, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“If you try adolescents in the adult criminal justice system they will have much more contact with gang members and convicted criminals,” he said. “This is going to result in higher levels of recidivism.”
One of the main causes for the rise in Brazil’s prison population has been the increase in the number of those jailed for drug trafficking. In 2006, Brazil introduced a new law which toughened the sentences for trafficking, while reducing the penalties for possession. But it failed to establish any criteria to determine the difference between the two offences. Judges, prosecutors and the police are responsible for determining the nature of the offence.
When the law came into effect, Brazil’s prisons contained 31,520 inmates on drug-trafficking charges. By mid-2013, that number had risen to 138,366, a 339% rise. Earlier this month, the supreme court upheld a prison sentence of four years 11 months given to a man caught with 0.2g of marijuana.
Brazil’s supreme court is due to debate whether the drugs law violates the constitutional right to privacy over the next six months.
