You spend all of your time locked up there, one person hitting another. There are a lot of fights there.
- Henrique O., age seventeen, speaking of the Espaço Recomeço detention center, Pará
I got these scars from another girl. That's why I came here. She did it because she was, I think she was drinking alcohol, smoking. She cut me, she wanted to kill me. . . . Sometimes that happens.
-Josefina S., seventeen, Santana, Amapá
In the punishment cells, they have the worst conditions there are. You end up sitting around, no energy to do anything. They let us out of the cells for fifteen or twenty minutes in the morning, that's it. It varies, depending on the guard, how much time we were out of the cell. But even when we're out, we just stand in the corridor outside the cell.
- Romão S., held in the Espaço Recomeço detention center, Pará, when he was seventeen
I called there [the Espaço Recomeço detention center]. I identified myself as the father. They told me that my son was injured. I learned that he wasn't involved. He hid in the bathroom; others burned mattresses. When I went there, it was horrible. It was horrible. He was burned, limping, his knee was hurt, he was burned everywhere. . . . He'd had no food until Sunday. Friday night and all day Saturday, without eating, just liquids. It was horrible.
-Hamilton A.'s father, referring to the state military police's response to a disturbance in the Espaço Recomeço detention center, Pará, in April 2002
|
