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V. “Factionalization” and Violence Among Youths

Youths and adults agreed that fights between rival drug gangs, particularly between members of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) and the Terceiro Comando (Third Command), were the primary cause of violence among youths in Rio de Janeiro’s detention centers.¹¹²  With the exception of CAI-Baixada and Santos Dumont, the institutional response to the presence of members of rival drug gangs has been to separate youths according to their declared or presumed factional allegiances.

To protect youths and maintain order, it is essential to separate detainees by age, physical maturity, and severity of crime, as recommended by international standards.  Housing youths of particular drug gangs together, a policy known as “factionalization,” is intended to serve the same public order purpose.  But separation has not worked; serious acts of violence, usually between members of rival gangs, occur frequently in Rio de Janeiro’s detention centers.  Moreover, separation does not address the root causes of violence.  Instead, separating youths by drug gang reinforces those factional allegiances and runs counter to the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system.  In some cases, the administrative division of youths by faction may create such allegiances by forcing youths to choose to live with a particular faction even if they were not originally affiliated with one.

For this reason, experts on the involvement of youths in Rio de Janeiro’s drug trade recommend that juvenile detention centers take steps to break down the influence of the drug gangs on detained youths.  Ending the automatic segregation of members of rival drug gangs is one step toward reducing the role of the factions in the lives of youths, provided that integration is undertaken gradually and with due regard for institutional security.  The “decentralization” of detention facilities—that is, gradually moving toward smaller detention centers located closer to the communities from which youths come—is another step that will increase the likelihood of success of efforts to integrate youths.   In addition, detention centers and the juvenile courts must ensure that detention is a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time, as required by international standards and Brazilian law.

Persistent and widespread violence is the result of a failure of management, not an inevitable feature of juvenile detention.  Sufficient staff, adequate training, careful monitoring, and a willingness to address the role that drug trafficking plays in youths’ lives will help reduce the unacceptably high level of violence in Rio de Janeiro’s juvenile detention centers.

Inter-Gang Violence

A large proportion of youths held in DEGASE institutions are detained for infractions related directly or indirectly with the drug trade, and many youths consider themselves loyal to one of the large drug gangs in the city.  At least as far back as 1995, there were reports detailing the rivalry among youths in juvenile detention centers belonging to drug gangs in Rio de Janeiro, principally between the members of the Comando Vermelho and the Terceiro Comando.  In 1995, the Jornal do Brasil reported on the “representation of criminal factions within the [DEGASE] complexes,” bringing the issue to the attention of Judge Geraldo Mascarenhas Prado, at that time the adjudicator responsible for overseeing disciplinary measures under the Statute of the Child and the Adolescent.¹¹³  In 1998, another Rio de Janeiro judge, Murilo Kielling, suggested that the presence and danger of the gangs in Rio de Janeiro’s juvenile detention centers justified sending a youth to be detained in another state for safety reasons.  “Nowadays, [youths in Rio de Janeiro’s detention centers] organize themselves into factions like those imprisoned in the penal system,” Judge Kielling stated in his decision.¹¹⁴  While some public officials have downplayed or refuted the existence of gangs within the state’s juvenile detention system, most concur that drug gangs play a significant role in most of Rio de Janeiro’s juvenile detention centers.  In 2002, for example, referring to the Instituto Padre Severino, state secretary for human rights Wania Sant’Anna rejected the notion that internal conflicts were being caused by factional rivalries,¹¹⁵ but the same day, prosecutor Márcio Mothé in the 2d Branch of Infancy and Youth related the problems in Padre Severino to “war between rival [drug] factions.”¹¹⁶

With the exception of CAI-Belford Roxo and Santos Dumont, the rule in DEGASE centers is of factional division.  All have experienced and continue to experience serious episodes of violence among youths and between youths and staff that often result from or are related to gang disputes.  Even in the wake of a staff torture scandal in September 2003, Judge Vianna considered violence among youths linked to gang allegiances to be the principal source of violence suffered by detainees.¹¹⁷  At its most intense, the problem of factionalization has been the cause or aggravating factor in numerous fights and rebellions leading to escapes, injuries, deaths, and even hostage situations.  The disturbances that result can also disrupt classes and other activities in the centers.

Educandário Santo Expedito

Bordering the Bangu adult prison complex, Santo Expedito has had the most violent history of gang disputes of all the DEGASE centers.  Different gangs were housed apart, sometimes at the requests of the youths themselves.  Those threatened by the Terceiro Comando and the Comando Vermelho were kept in a third area of the center.  At the time of our visit, these quarters were separated from the Terceiro Comando quarters by a fragile plaster wall that could be easily torn down.  Luke Dowdney, the coordinator of Viva Rio’s program on children in organized armed violence and the author of a major study on youth involvement in Rio de Janeiro’s drug trade, blames the numerous gang-related incidents at Santo Expedito to the lack of integration that is reinforced by the housing segregation.  “In March 2002,” he noted, “during a rebellion within the facility, a group of faction members killed an adolescent from a rival faction.”¹¹⁸

Such violence is not uncommon in Santo Expedito.  In November 2002, another boy was killed and two were injured in a rebellion ignited after a confrontation between Comando Vermelho and Terceiro Comando members during their school hours.¹¹⁹  The housing facilities were reportedly destroyed following the police action aimed at regaining control of the center.  The same night, another boy suffered burns to over 80 percent of his body after crossing a barricade of mattresses set alight by members of the Terceiro Comando.¹²⁰  Three adults linked to the Comando Vermelho, aged eighteen through twenty-one and serving sentences they received prior to reaching the age of eighteen, were identified as leaders of the disturbance and transferred to a penitentiary in Bangu.¹²¹  Among other charges, one of these transferred youths was indicted for the attempted murder of the seventeen-year-old burn victim.¹²²

An earlier rebellion in November 2001 also involved disputes between members of the Comando Vermelho and the Terceiro Comando.¹²³  At least four DEGASE staff members were reportedly taken hostage by detainees as Comando Vermelho members attempted to escape.¹²⁴  And there were at least three rebellions in 2000.  The first, in May, was definitively linked to a gang dispute during lunch hour when the groups typically meet; it left eleven detainees injured and one police officer in the hospital.¹²⁵  As reported by O Globo, sources in the Justice Secretariat claimed in 2001 that Santo Expedito was the center that originated the practice of dividing detainees along factional lines following the May 2000 rebellion; after that mutiny, staff allegedly tried to placate the detainees by segregating them, in compliance with one of the demands made the leaders of that mutiny.¹²⁶  During a July 2000 disturbance, youths aged sixteen to twenty-one reportedly secured their escape through the front gates of the detention center by brandishing pistols and hand grenades.¹²⁷  The third disturbance, in November of that year, involved some 200 detainees and resulted in considerable property damage.¹²⁸  One of several conflicting accounts of the incidents attributes the disruption to a fight between members of the Comando Vermelho and the Terceiro Comando.¹²⁹

Instituto Padre Severino

At the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit, the detainees at Padre Severino were split along factional lines, with 90 percent identified as Comando Vermelho and 10 percent as Terceiro Comando.  Padre Severino has a violent recent history of conflicts arising from or aggravated by gang disputes.  In May 2002, for example, public prosecutors interviewed a sixteen-year-old boy who had serious injuries resulting from fights with members of rival gangs, according to a news account that appeared in O Globo.¹³⁰  Days later, an inter-gang quarrel led to a general rebellion in which at least forty and possibly as many as sixty youths escaped.¹³¹  Less than a month later, in what appeared to be a gang-related act, a sixteen-year-old boy reported that twenty-two other youths attacked him, raped him, and carved the initials “CV” (for Comando Vermelho) onto his buttocks and left wrist.  The boy described the attack as punishment for his failure to repay a debt on time, and he told O Globo that the carving of initials on the buttocks is used in Padre Severino to signal that a person has been raped.¹³²

Escola JoÃo Luis Alves

Marcelo F., a thirteen-year-old in JoÃo Luis Alves, told Human Rights Watch that youths are housed according to gang membership but participate in activities together during the day.¹³³  When Human Rights Watch asked Peter da Costa, the detention center’s director, about the level of violence, he suggested that the center did not have a serious problem with violence.  “There are a lot of scuffles, but they’re kids’ things,” he said, although he conceded that fights were most likely to break out between members of rival gangs.¹³⁴  Nevertheless, in June 2002, press accounts reported that youths associated with the largest gang began a disturbance in which one boy from an opposing gang sustained stab wounds, four DEGASE agents were held hostage, and various youths were victims of excessive smoke inhalation in a fire that broke out during the disturbance.¹³⁵

Centros de Recurso Integrado de Atendimento ao Menor (CRIAMs)

Perhaps the strictest segregation along gang lines occurs in the Centros de Recurso Integrado de Atendimento ao Menor (CRIAMs), facilities for youths sentenced to semi-liberty.  Luke Dowdney found that “only the offenders of a particular faction are sent to a particular facility.”¹³⁶  Press accounts are consistent with his finding.  In 2001, for example, a boy in the CRIAM in Santa Cruz told O Globo, “In the Bangu CRIAM only Terceiro Comando and Amigos dos Amigos boys stay.  Here in Penha and on Ilha do Governador, the Comando Vermelho dominates.”¹³⁷  In 2001, a Justice Secretariat source told O Globo that Bangu CRIAM staff ask the children about their factional allegiance upon arrival and recommend that Comando Vermelho members either request a transfer or jump the low walls to escape.¹³⁸  Of the Bangu CRIAM, a mother of a child in DEGASE custody asserted in 2001, “They do not accept youths who reside in a geographic region dominated by the enemy faction.”¹³⁹  Indeed, also in 2001, a child who arrived at the Bangu CRIAM tattooed with the letters CV was allegedly transferred by the center’s directors.¹⁴⁰

Segregation by Drug Faction

In response to these security problems, youths from different gangs are housed separately in most of Rio de Janeiro’s detention centers.  In some cases, they may be treated as if they belong to a gang regardless of whether they were involved in one before their detention.  A public defender told Human Rights Watch that any youth arrested, regardless of the crime of which he is accused, will be asked about his allegiance to a drug gang.   If the youth does not belong to one, the officer will classify the youth as belonging to the gang that controls the neighborhood in which he lives.¹⁴¹

We heard the same from the youths we interviewed.  For example, seventeen-year-old Flávio S. was assigned to the Comando Vermelho cells in the Centro de Triagem e RecepçÃo in October 2004 even though he was not a member of any gang.  “They ask, ‘Where do you live?,’” he told us.  Staff at the center place youths with the dominant gang in their neighborhood, he said.  “Only if they have a doubt do they ask, ‘Is it Comando Vermelho or Terceiro Comando there?’”¹⁴²  In a similar account appearing in an O Globo article, a sixteen-year-old boy from a well-off neighborhood without a significant gang presence reported that at Padre Severino, “When asked by the social worker as to which faction I belonged, I responded that I did not belong to any . . . so she told me that, unfortunately, there were no neutral cells and that I would have to choose.”¹⁴³

The factional segregation policy varies from one detention center to another.  Padre Severino, Santo Expedito, the Centro de Triagem e RecepçÃo, and some CRIAMs are internally divided by gang, with certain sections designated as Comando Vermelho and others reserved for the Terceiro Comando.  Other CRIAMs effectively house only members of a particular gang.¹⁴⁴  Except in those centers reserved in their entirety for particular gangs, complete segregation is nearly impossible.  “There’s no way.  You always meet,” Flávio S. told Human Rights Watch.¹⁴⁵  Youths of different gangs may come into contact with each other at mealtimes, on their way to and from court hearings, or at other times when they are moved from one part of the detention center to another.

Two of the detention centers visited by Human Rights Watch do not separate youth by drug gang.  In one of these, CAI-Baixada, “Everyone is mixed together,” a volunteer who works in the detention center told us.  “They’re in the same rooms.  They lose their identity” as a member of the gang, she said.¹⁴⁶  This appeared to be related both to the director’s attempt to prevent factionalization and the fact that the majority of adolescents come from the interior of the state, where there are not as many problems with drug gangs.  The other detention center, the Educandário Santos Dumont, a girls’ detention center housing both pre- and post-trial detainees, was reported in 2000 by Jornal do Brasil to be free from conflicting factional allegiances; instead, the girls formed their own groupings.  Violence still occurred, and instances of self-inflicted injuries were more frequent than in the boys’ facilities.¹⁴⁷  Nevertheless, the experience in Santos Dumont suggests that difficulties arising from factional allegiances are largely limited to boys’ detention centers; this is probably related in part to the fact that mainly men and boys do the more violent work within the drug trade.¹⁴⁸

Detention officials divide youths by gang allegiances (or presumed gang allegiances) out of a legitimate concern for security.  Flávio S. told us that even if he had not been placed with the Comando Vermelho, youths affiliated with the Terceiro Comando would have treated him as if he were associated with the Comando Vermelho because that gang was dominant in his community.  “If suddenly they throw me into the Terceiro Comando cell, they would kill me,” he said.¹⁴⁹  The public defender’s office takes the position that “we always want to preserve the physical integrity of the adolescent even if that means dividing by factions,” Dr. Souza told Human Rights Watch.¹⁵⁰

But Luke Dowdney expresses concern that in separating youths by gang, the government legitimizes the authority and power of these factions and hinders long-term efforts to foster rehabilitation both inside and outside of the juvenile detention system.  On the basis of a series of interviews with juvenile detention center staff and detainees, Dowdney concluded that the “need for complete integration of offenders” was one of several necessary reforms of the state’s juvenile detention system.¹⁵¹

Some officials have voiced agreement with this view.  In April 2001, for example, prosecutor Márcio Mothé stated, “If we want to re-socialize these adolescents, we cannot create the faction culture within the [juvenile detention] centers.”¹⁵²  That same month, Judge Guaraci de Campos Vianna, Rio de Janeiro’s head adjudicator in child criminal cases, criticized any form of segregation, saying that “This distortion [separation by factions], admitted by some and negated by others, cannot be.”¹⁵³  For his part, DEGASE director general Sérgio Novo pledged to investigate “the involvement of [DEGASE] staff in the division of internees by factions.”¹⁵⁴  Other public prosecutors and the Justice Secretariat followed suit announcing that they would also look into reports that gangs existed in DEGASE’s detention centers.¹⁵⁵  Officials voiced similar sentiments in response to a wave of mass escapes in mid-2002—many related to gang disturbances—that led to the flight of 30 percent of DEGASE’s detainees in the span of sixty days.   Public prosecutor Asterio Pereira dos Santos pledged to issue a request to then DEGASE director Sidney Teles da Silva to cease segregating centers on the basis of gang membership.¹⁵⁶

If such a request was made, it was never acted on, and by 2003 the official position on the issue appeared to have shifted dramatically.  Dr. Novo stated in February 2003 that youths in detention must be separated by gang for reasons of security, according to accounts in the Folha de S. Paulo.¹⁵⁷

The experience of the JoÃo Luis Alves and CAI-Baixada detention centers suggest that it may be possible to integrate youths gradually without endangering security.  Such efforts should be undertaken on a pilot basis in other institutions with small groups of youths who have undergone an initial period of observation and evaluation.  For such an effort to succeed, DEGASE will need to increase the number of staff assigned to integrated units, and it must offer those staff members additional training on adolescent behavior management techniques.  Ultimately, integration is likely to be most successful in small detention facilities located in or near the communities in which youths live.

With 175 youths in detention when Human Rights Watch visited in July 2003, Santo Expedito appeared on paper to be only slightly over its capacity of 166.  But three of the center’s seven cellblocks, including the one above, were destroyed in a November 2002 fire, leading to severe overcrowding in the remaining four cellblocks.
© 2004 Michael Bochenek/Human Rights Watch.