VII.  LIVING CONDITIONS

Idleness is a serious problem in many of the detention centers we visited, particularly the Espaço Recomeço detention center in Pará, the Aninga detention center in Amapá, the Raimundo Parente detention center in Amazônas, and the boys' detention center in Rondônia.  Boys in each of these facilities told us that they spent significant portions of their day locked in their cells with nothing to do.  Girls spent more time out of their cells, but none of the girls' detention centers offered opportunities for them to play sports, the primary means of large-muscle exercise for youths in detention.

Youths in the detention centers we visited generally reported that they were able to see visitors for two hours or more each week.  Several detention centers in Pará restrict or bar visitation for particular categories of youths, such as boys on cell restriction in the Espaço Recomeço detention center and pretrial detainees in the girls' detention center.  Facilities in the state of Amapá, in contrast, had particularly generous visitation policies, permitting family members to visit throughout the week.

Most youths reported that they were provided with bedding and mattresses or hammocks on their arrival.  In the Espaço Recomeço detention center in Pará and the boys' detention center in Rondônia, however, some youths told us that they had slept on the floor at some point during their detention.  In addition, youths in the Espaço Recomeço detention center consistently reported problems with hygiene and access to water.

Girls are housed in centers that serve both pretrial and sentenced detainees.  Sometimes both types of detainees are placed in the same dormitories or cells.  Girls do not generally receive recreational opportunities on par with those afforded to boys; in Pará and Rondônia, for example, girls had no access to sports facilities and appeared to spend much of their recreation time sewing, engaged in other crafts, or asleep.  Several of the girls' detention centers, the Marise Mendes center in Amazônas in particular, were markedly older and more dilapidated than most of the boys' detention centers we saw.

Recreation, Exercise , and Idleness

International standards call for every child in detention to have "a suitable amount of time for daily free exercise, in the open air when weather permits," and "additional time for daily leisure activities."[198]  In conformity with these standards, Brazil's Statute of the Child and the Adolescent guarantees youths in detention the right to cultural activities, sports, and recreation.[199]  In practice, however, youths' access to recreational activities and exercise varies from center to center.  Boys in the Espaço Recomeço detention center in Pará, the Aninga detention center in Amapá, the Raimundo Parente detention center in Amazônas, and the Casa do Adolescente in Rondônia told us that they spent significant portions of their day locked in their cells with nothing to do.  In addition, girls frequently had no opportunities to play sports, the primary means of large-muscle exercise for youths in detention.[200]

Youths in the Espaço Recomeço detention center described a system of alternating morning and afternoon recreation periods.  Lucas G. told us that the guards let him out of his cell at 8 a.m. for four hours one day and then for three hours starting at 3 p.m. the next day.  During other times of the day, "we don't do anything," he told us.[201]  Tobias V., another detainee in the Espaço Recomeço detention center, reported, "We have four-and-a-half hours in the morning one day and three hours in the afternoon the next.  With time and with good behavior, you can get more [recreation] time.  Two times a week at night, some kids get recreation.  That's for some kids, not all."[202]  Contrasting conditions in Pará's pretrial detention center with those in the Espaço Recomeço detention center, Henrique O. told us that the pretrial detention center "gives you more attention than in EREC [the Espaço Recomeço center].  You go to your cell at 10 p.m. to sleep.  At 8 a.m. you're out of the cell. . . .  In EREC, you spend the whole time in the cell."[203]

Those in Amapá's detention center also reported that they spent significant portions of their day locked in their cells.  "In Aninga, after lunch, around noon, we spent two hours locked in our rooms.  We went out again from two to six in the afternoon.  At six, back in the rooms again until seven-thirty in the morning," Terence M. told us.[204]

Amapá's semiliberty unit was far less restrictive, Terence M, reported.  "It's better here," he said.  "There aren't bars.  We can spend the weekends with our families.  We study, and we work too.  We can do a [vocational training] course.  It's only at 10 p.m. that they put us in the rooms to sleep."[205]

"Every afternoon they play ball here," claimed a detention center official in the Casa do Adolescente, the boys' pretrial detention center in Rondônia, pointing to a gravel lot littered with construction materials.  "Every day," he repeated, telling us that children in the facility spent two hours each day out of their cell.[206]  But the youths we interviewed told us that they had few opportunities for recreation.  Instead, most reported that they were confined to their cells for lengthy periods of time.  For example, João L., a seventeen-year-old, told us that he had been locked in his cell for at least twenty days without going outside.  Carlos M., seventeen, reported that he entered the center ten days before our interview, spending most of that time in his cell.  "Once in a while we go outside.  Today we played football," he said.[207]

Most of the boys' facilities had open spaces where youths could play football and other sports when they were allowed outside.  "We play sports, volleyball, sometimes," said Lucas G., held in the Espaço Recomeço detention center.  "We used to have ping pong, but the table broke."[208]

At their discretion, staff may provide activities outside a detention center unless a judge has ordered otherwise in a particular case.[209]  This could compensate for the lack of facilities for outdoor recreation in several of the detention centers we visited.  For example, the boys' pretrial detention unit in Pará does not have open space for recreation, but it is located next to a park that could be used for this purpose if there were sufficient staff and military police to secure the area during the times that detained youths used it.    Nevertheless, Edison L. told us that the children in the detention center had not gone to the park during the fifteen days that he had been there.  "I've never heard that we get to go to that park," he said.[210]  "No, we haven't been outside the center," said Maurício A., who had been in the pretrial detention center for twenty-six days at the time of our interview.[211]

Some facilities offered youths a wide variety of additional activities.  The most popular was capoeira, a martial arts form with roots in African dance.  Youths in the Dagmar Feitoza detention center, Amazônas' facility for older boys, were particularly positive about the variety of recreational and educational activities offered there.  Contrasting that facility with the Raimundo Parente detention center, the state's facility for younger boys, sixteen-year-old Gilberto S. told us that the center for older youths was much better.  "It's much different from there [Raimundo Parente].  Here there are studies and work, activities like capoeira.  There they don't have much, just an area for football.  They don't have studies.  I didn't study there.  Here I do."[212]

Contact with the Outside World

Brazilian law guarantees children in detention the right to receive weekly visits.  This right may only be suspended by a judge, and then only temporarily when there are "serious and well founded reasons why such visits would be prejudicial to the interests of the adolescent."[213]  These provisions conform with international standards, which call for states to guarantee children "the right to receive regular and frequent visits, in principle once a week and not less than once a month, in circumstances that respect the need of the juvenile for privacy, contact and unrestricted communication with the family and the defence counsel."[214]  In general, youths reported that they were able to see visitors for up to two hours each week and in some cases longer; they encountered few problems with visits.  In several centers in Pará, however, we heard that particular categories of youths-those on cell restriction in the Espaço Recomeço detention center and pretrial detainees in the girls' detention center-have limited or no visitation.  For most others, the only complaint was the lack of conjugal visits.  Such visits are commonly permitted for adults-at least for men-but not for youths, even those who are married.

In a typical account, Henrique O. told us that in the Espaço Recomeço detention center, "visits are on Sundays from nine to noon.  I had visits from my father, mother, grandmother, aunt, from various relatives.  There weren't any problems."[215]  Similarly, youths in the Centro Juvenil Masculino in Pará reported that they were able to receive visits for two hours on Sundays.[216] Edison L., a fifteen-year-old in the pretrial detention center in Pará, said,  "We get visits for two hours on Sundays.  I've had visits two times.  I received two full hours."[217]

We heard reports that youths placed on cell restriction in the Espaço Recomeço detention center have limited visitation.  Several of those we interviewed told us that visits were shorter for youths on cell confinement.  Some said that youths on cell restriction received no visits at all.  "On cell confinement, no, you don't get visits," Henrique O. told us.[218]

We also heard that authorities in the Espaço Recomeço detention center restricted visits after a disturbance at the beginning of 2002.  "In EREC, visits were good until the rebellion," said Flávio M., referring to the first of two such incidents during the first four months of the year.  "Then the visits were only fifteen minutes."[219]

In addition, we heard from girls held in Pará that pretrial detainees cannot receive visits.  "Pretrial detainees (provisores) don't have visits.  They're only for the sentenced ones.  Just phone calls.  The time depends.  Fifteen minutes, maybe," reported Inês F.[220]

Facilities in the state of Amapá had particularly liberal visitation rules.  Eddy A. told us that he was able to receive visits for two hours; his mother visited him on Thursdays, and his wife and daughter visited him on Fridays.[221]  Terence M., an eighteen-year-old who spent ten months in the Aninga detention center when he was seventeen, told us that he was able to have visits every Sunday for up to three hours.[222]  In Amapá's semiliberty unit, in addition to the possibility of spending weekends with family members, youths can receive visits "at whatever time they want, except at night," according to fifteen-year-old Jacó G.[223]

In two of the centers we visited, youths were periodically allowed to spend nights with their families.  Youths in Amapá's semiliberty unit could spend weekends with family members, Jacó G. told us.[224]  The same was true for many of the youths in the Centro Sócio-Educativo Masculino, in the state of Pará, who are able to stay with their families every other weekend.  Henrique B. told us that he had gone home ten times at the time of our interview in April 2002.[225]

For many youths, the biggest obstacle to visitation is distance.  "I've had visits from my aunts.  They come on Sundays, from the interior.  It's a bit far," said Iolanda D., held in the girls' detention center in Pará.[226]  Lucas G., in the Espaço Recomeço detention center in Pará, told us, "My family can come on Fridays.  They just discovered that I'm here.  They're going to visit me." He reported that his family must travel two hours from their home to visit him.[227]

Youths in facilities that allowed them to spend weekends with families also report that the cost of travel sometimes prevents them from returning home.  "It's difficult because of the money," said Jacó G., who told us that it cost 20 reais (approximately U.S.$9 at the time of our interview) to travel to and from his parents' house.  He tries to go every weekend, but he is not always able.[228]

Many boys complained about the lack of conjugal visits, and the subject provoked much debate among detention center officials.  Often referred to as "intimate visits," conjugal visits are allowed in adult men's prisons in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America,[229] but they are not currently permitted in any of the juvenile detention centers we visited.  José Asenção Fonseca told us that authorities in Maranhão were considering conjugal visits for youths in detention.  Speaking of boys in detention, he said, "Fifty percent have children.  Ten percent of the adolescents are married.  They all have girlfriends."[230]

In Amazônas, we learned that the juvenile detention centers used to permit boys in long-term relationships (but not those with same-sex partners) to have monthly conjugal visits.  "We would check to see if the adolescent had a fixed companion, a fixed girlfriend," said Paulo Sampeio.  Conjugal visits were discontinued after authorities felt the visits caused problems with other youths.[231]

The lack of conjugal visits for these youths may also reflect societal reluctance to acknowledge the sexuality of youths.  "The right to sexuality is not seen by the system," said Francisco Lemos.  "There is a very strong taboo on this issue."[232]  Loide Gomes added, "People are not prepared for the sexuality of these children."[233]

Bedding

In general, youths reported that they were provided with bedding and mattresses or hammocks upon arrival.  The only exceptions we heard of were in the Espaço Recomeço detention center in Pará and the Casa do Adolescente, the boys' detention center in Rondônia.  Youths in each of those facilities told us that they had slept on the floor.  We observed that the cells in the Casa do Adolescente had many fewer mattresses and hammocks than the number of youths occupying them.

In the Espaço Recomeço detention center, youths reported that they lacked mattresses for short periods of time, usually immediately after arrival or transfer to a different cell.  For instance, Lucas G. reported that he had no mattress when he first arrived at the Espaço Recomeço center in March 2002.  He was given one after several days, but he told us that it was destroyed in the fire during the April riot.[234]

In the Casa do Adolescente, in contrast, we saw no indication that those who lacked mattresses or hammocks would eventually receive them.

The U.N. Rules for the Protection of Juveniles recommend, "Every juvenile should, in accordance with local or national standards, be provided with separate and sufficient bedding, which should be clean when issued, kept in good order and changed often enough to ensure cleanliness."[235]

Hygiene and Access to Water

Youths in the Espaço Recomeço consistently reported problems with hygiene and access to water.  Elsewhere, we heard few complaints.

In the Espaço Recomeço detention center, as in most detention centers, youths are responsible for washing their own clothes.  We observed youths in other centers washing their clothing in sinks or tubs located near their living areas.  In the Espaço Recomeço center, however, several youths told us that they did not have enough time outside their cells to wash their clothes.  Romão S. reported that he washed his clothes and sheets in the toilet when he was in the Espaço Recomeço detention center.[236]

The cells in many of the detention centers we visited, including the Espaço Recomeço center, do not have sinks or faucets to provide drinking water.  As a result, youths must ask guards for water when they are thirsty.  Those in the Espaço Recomeço detention center, in particular, reported that guards often did not respond to their requests.  "Here the guards bring water," said Flávio M., seventeen, in Belém's Centro Juvenil Masculino.  "But there [in the Espaço Recomeço detention center] they take their time.  It's very hot, and they're slow about it.  You have to ask the guards a lot."[237]  "At night it was difficult," said Romão S. of his time in the Espaço Recomeço center.  "After breakfast they give you water, and after lunch.  At dinner they come with a can of water.  But at night you called them and they didn't come. . . .  At night it was very difficult."[238]

International standards provide that "[c]lean drinking water should be available to every juvenile at any time."[239]  More generally, children deprived of their liberty "have the right to facilities and services that meet all the requirements of health and human dignity."[240]

Girls in Detention

There are many fewer girls than boys in detention.  At the time of our detention center visits in April 2002, there were six girls in detention in Amapá, twenty-four in Amazônas, three in one of Maranhão's two detention centers for girls, eight in Pará, and four in Rondônia.[241]  Of the total number of youths in detention in each facility on the day of our visits, less than 12 percent were girls.  (Of the forty-four youths we interviewed, eight were girls.)  While these data are not necessarily representative-they are based on one-day snapshots rather than monthly or yearly averages-they are consistent with girls' estimates of the number of youths in their centers during their time in detention.  For instance, Patrícia D. told us that she was held with between two and four other girls during her time in Aninga, the detention center in Amapá.[242]  Based on these data, the ratio of girls to boys in juvenile detention is higher than that for women to men in the adult prison system in Brazil and other countries in the region.[243]  Even so, there are many fewer girls in detention than boys.

As a result of these low numbers, there are fewer detention centers for girls.  Amazônas, Pará, and Rondônia have only one girls' detention center each.  Maranhão has two.  Amapá houses girls in a separate wing of Aninga, its sole juvenile detention center.  In each of these facilities, girls who are awaiting trial are housed together with those who have been sentenced to internment.  The centers may also house girls who have been sentenced to the less-restrictive measure of semiliberty.

In the Aninga detention center in Amapá, which held both boys and girls in separate areas of the center, girls told us that they were allowed to spend less time in the common recreation areas than the boys, presumably as a result of the need to keep girls and boys separated.  "We complained a lot because of the lack of space," Patrícia D. said.  "The time we spent out in the sun was just two hours, the rest of the time we were locked up.  That was the difference.  The majority were boys.  They had more attention and more freedom."[244]

Patrícia D. told us that girls in the Aninga detention center felt neglected in other ways as a result of their placement in the same center with boys.  "There was a small group of psychologists for all of us, and they would forget about the girls a little.  There should be a psychologist who works only with the girls," Patrícia D.  Ultimately, she concluded, the state should have "a separate space for women."[245]

Even in Amazônas, Pará, and Rondônia, each of which has a separate girls' detention center, we heard from girls that they had few opportunities for outdoor recreation and exercise.  None of these detention centers had the open spaces that were common in the boys' facilities we visited.  In Pará, where the girls' facility and several of the other detention center are next to a public park, youths told us that they had never been allowed to use it.  Referring to the park, Iolanda D. told us, "Only those who are on semiliberty can go to the complex.  We have art every day.  Aside from that, we spend the entire time without doing anything.  They don't do anything outside the center."[246]

More generally, disparities go beyond the lack of comparable recreational opportunities.  Several girls' detention facilities are markedly older and more dilapidated than most of the boys' detention centers we saw.  In Amazônas, the girls' detention center has only two dormitories to house up to two dozen girls.  As a result, detention center staff reported, disputes among girls are common.  Staff told us that the absence of alternatives meant that they frequently resorted to placing youths in the punishment cells when they could not get along with the others in the dormitories.[247]

We did not visit either of the two detention facilities for girls in Maranhão.  According to Francisco Lemos, an attorney with the nongovernmental Marcos Passerini Center, "the situation for girls is much better" than that of boys in the state.  He told us "The girls' detention center [in São Luís] doesn't have cells; it has rooms instead.  It's a house, with a living room, television, and a kitchen, like a residence."[248]

Children who are deprived of their liberty, boys and girls alike, have the right "to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person and in a manner which takes into account the needs of a person of his or her age."[249]  The U.N. Rules for the Protection of Children Deprived of their Liberty provide authoritative guidance in interpreting the content of this provision.  In particular, the rules emphasize children's need for "sensory stimuli, opportunities for association with peers and participation in sports, physical exercise and leisure-time activities."[250]

When a state houses girls in facilities that are of markedly lower quality than its detention centers for boys and afford girls fewer opportunities for exercise and recreation than boys in detention receive, it discriminates on the basis of gender, in violation of international law.  Under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, ratified by Brazil in 1984, "any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women . . . on the basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field" is prohibited.[251]  Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child bar discrimination on the basis of gender.[252]