II. RECOMMENDATIONS

To state detention authorities
Admission, Observation, and Classification

· End the routine use of cell confinement upon admission to a juvenile detention facility.
· In accordance with the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent, separate children by age, physical maturity, demeanor, and offense.
· House young adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one separately from detainees under the age of eighteen.

Conditions of Confinement

· Ensure that the conditions of confinement for children meet all of the requirements of health, safety, and human dignity.
· Provide every child with a mattress or hammock and clean bedding, which should be changed often enough to ensure cleanliness.

Disciplinary Practices

· Prohibit the use of disciplinary measures that involve closed or solitary confinement or any other punishment that may compromise the physical or mental health of the child.
· Use cell confinement only when absolutely necessary for the protection of a child. Where necessary, it should be employed for the shortest possible period of time and subject to prompt and systematic review.
· Provide clear guidelines for detention center staff who impose discipline.
· Establish procedures for reviewing decisions to impose discipline on youths.
· Ensure that every child understands the rules of the detention center. In particular, provide children with a clear description of the behaviors that are prohibited and the sanctions for each behavior. Post the rules in prominent places accessible to children in detention.

Complaint System

· Establish a complaint system independent of guards and military police. Complaints should be investigated thoroughly. Detention center staff who perpetrate violence should be appropriately disciplined and removed from duties that bring them into contact with youths. Particularly serious cases should be referred to the Ministério Público (the office of the attorney general) and judicial authorities for investigation.

Monitoring

· Establish an effective, independent body to monitor the treatment of youths in detention.
· Following the example of the state of Pará, guarantee legal support and human rights groups the right to visit detention centers and speak with detained youths.

Education

· In accordance with Brazilian law and international obligations, provide every person held in a juvenile detention facility with an education suited to his or her needs and abilities and designed to prepare him or her for return to society.
· Ensure that the schooling provided in juvenile detention facilities is recognized by local education authorities.

Health

· Following the recommendation of the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, have a qualified medical professional available to examine every person upon entry to and exit from a place of detention. These professionals should have sufficient medical supplies to meet the detainees' medical needs and the authority to have a detainee transferred to a hospital independent of the detaining authority if the detainee's needs cannot be met at the detention center.
· Ensure that detention centers, notably those in the state of Rondônia, provide information and education on prevailing health problems and their prevention and control.
· Provide youths in all detention centers with access to HIV-related prevention information, education, voluntary testing and counseling, and means of prevention, including condoms.
· Ensure that HIV testing of youths in detention be performed only with their specific informed consent. Pre- and post-test counseling should be provided in all cases.

Infrastructure

· Renovate the physical infrastructure of those detention centers that have fallen into severe disrepair or are inadequate for the size and needs of their population. In particular, the state of Rondônia should rebuild the Casa do Adolescente in Porto Velho, and the state of Amazônas should expand the capacity of the Centro Sócio-Educativo Marise Mendes, its girls' detention center.

Girls in Detention

· Provide appropriate basic medical services for girls, including routine and timely gynecological examinations.
· Provide prenatal care for girls who require it.
· Give girls sufficient opportunities for recreation and exercise, including large-muscle exercise.

To the State Military Police

· Train military police officers in Brazilian law and international norms that mandate the humane treatment of youths in detention.
· Limit police use of force to that strictly necessary to prevent youths from inflicting self-injury, injuries to others, or serious destruction of property. The use of force should be limited to exceptional cases, where all other control methods have been exhausted and failed; it should never cause humiliation or degradation.

To state judicial authorities

· Sentence youths to deprivation of liberty only as measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time, as required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Brazil's Statute of the Child and the Adolescent.

To state legislatures

· Authorize funding for municipalities, particularly those located in Brazil's interior, to establish and staff programs to administer the less-restrictive socioeducational measures of semiliberty (a measure that youths serve in facilities similar to halfway houses) and probation (libertade assistida).

To the Office of the Attorney General (Ministério Público)

· Routinely investigate the military police's response in riots and similar disturbances and bring charges against officers found to have employed excessive force.

To the federal Ministry of Justice
· Devote a portion of the federal funding for training of juvenile detention staff to specialized training on international standards, the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent, and strategies appropriate for dealing with children and adolescents.
· Direct federal funding for the construction of new detention units or the reform of existing units toward detention facilities that are designed to meet the requirements of health and human diginity and the rehabilitative aim of residential treatment, with due regard for the needs of children for privacy, sensory stimuli, opportunities for association with peers, and participation in sports, physical exercises, and leisure-time activities.

To the federal Ministry of Foreign Relations

· Submit Brazil's overdue report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the country's compliance with the requirements of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

To the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
· Consider conducting an on-site visit to Brazil with a specific focus on children in detention.