A total of 9,555 youths were in detention in Brazil during the months of September and October 2002, according to the Ministry of Justice.
449 youths were held in juvenile detention centers during the same period in the states of Amazonas, Amapá, Maranhão, Pará, and Rondônia.
The national juvenile detention rate was 2.88 youths for every 10,000 at the end of 2002.
The juvenile detention rate was lower in four of the five states Human Rights Watch visited, ranging from 0.6 per 10,000 in Maranhão to 2.2 per 10,000 in Amazonas. In the state of Amapá, the smallest of the five states, the 65 youths in detention represented a rate of 8.4 per 10,000.
Youths in detention are predominantly male, black (preto) or brown (pardo), and poor, with low levels of education. Most are between the ages of 16 and 18.
- Girls represent 6 percent of juvenile detainees in Brazil.
- Nationally, 61 percent are Afro-Brazilian. In northern Brazil, 76 percent of those in detention are black (preto) or brown (pardo).
- Sixty percent of youths in detention come from families with monthly incomes of R$50 to R$100, between U.S.$15.70 and U.S.$31.40 at the current rate of exchange.
- Nearly 90 percent of detained youths have not completed primary education, and 51 percent were not attending schools at the time of the commission of the crimes for which they were convicted.
- Seventy-six percent of detained youths are between the ages of 16 and 18, 18 percent are between 12 and 15 years of age, and 6 percent are 19 or 20. (Brazilian law allows youths to be detained in the juvenile system up to the age of 21.)
Homicide, robbery by threat or force (roubo), and petty theft (furto), in that order, were the most frequent crimes for which youths were detained in the states of Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Rondônia, and Pará during September and October 2002.(1) Nationally, robbery by threat or force was the most frequent crime for which youths are detained.(2)
Source: Ministério da Justiça, Secretaria de Estado de Dereitos Humanos, Departamento da Criança e do Adolescente, and Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, Mapeamento da situação das unidades de execução de medida socioeducativa de privação de libertade ao adolescente em conflito com a lei (Brasília: Ministério da Justiça, December 2002).
1 In Amazonas, the second most frequent category for which youths were detained was "other crimes"-a catchall category which includes serious offenses such as the possession of weapons, kidnapping, and attempted homicide along with the lesser offense of violating probation or other terms of prior sentences.
2 The national data are heavily influenced by São Paulo, the state with the largest number of youths in detention. São Paulo detained 1,851 youths for robbery by threat or force during September and October 2002, as compared with 287 detained for homicide.
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