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II. Recommendations

Rio de Janeiro’s Department of Socio-Educational Action (Departmento Geral de Ações Sócio-Educativas, DEGASE), now a branch of the State Secretariat for Childhood and Youth (Secretaria de Estado da Infância e da Juventude), has primary responsibility for the administration of the state’s juvenile detention system.  Human Rights Watch calls on DEGASE and, as appropriate, other state and federal entities, to implement the recommendations set forth in our December 2004 report as well as those of the National Council on the Rights of Children and Adolescents (Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente, CONANDA), the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

In particular, DEGASE should take the following steps in order to protect the human rights of youths in the state’s juvenile detention system:

• Fill staffing shortages through the legally required “concurso público” (open competition) as a matter of priority.
• Provide current and new staff with regular professional training and other support.
• Prohibit the use of collective punishment.
• Establish a complaint system independent from guards and ensure that all complaints are investigated thoroughly, with appropriate discipline for staff who perpetrate violence and other abuses.
• Ensure that youths receive schooling, professional training, and other activities, including leisure activities, on a regular basis.
• Provide youths with items necessary for the maintenance of hygiene and personal cleanliness, as well as offering them frequent changes of clothing, individual mattresses and bedding, and adequate opportunities to bathe.
• Provide adequate, clean, and well-maintained facilities, particularly housing units, to the standard required for human dignity.
• Routinely notify the State Council for the Defense of the Child and Adolescent (Conselho Estadual de Defesa da Criança e do Adolescente), the State Secretariat of Childhood and Youth, the state prosecutor’s office, the state public defender’s office and the juvenile court of reports of abuse, escape attempts, riots, rebellions, and other serious disturbances or security breaches.

The State Prosecutor’s Office should regularly inspect juvenile detention centers without notice, taking appropriate action against detention center directors who fail to remedy deficiencies.  Specifically, it should:

• Conduct regular and systematic surprise inspections of juvenile detention centers.
• Bring administrative and judicial proceedings required to correct any illegalities and irregularities in juvenile detention centers, as authorized by the Statute of the Child and Adolescent.
• Investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible for abuses in juvenile detention centers.

The State Council for the Defense of the Child and Adolescent (Conselho Estadual de Defesa da Criança e do Adolescente), a body that includes civil society as well as governmental representatives, should exercise its mandate to conduct regular and systematic surprise inspections of juvenile detention centers and should send reports of such inspections to the appropriate governmental bodies so that they may initiate the administrative and judicial proceedings required to correct any illegalities and irregularities it finds.

The State Secretariat for Childhood and Youth should finish and submit its proposal to make the DEGASE Inspector General’s Office autonomous from DEGASE itself and reporting directly to the secretariat.  The new office should have full access to juvenile detention centers and all other investigatory and enforcement powers necessary to carry out its mandate.

The State Public Defender’s Office (Defensoria Pública do Estado do Rio de Janeiro) should fill staffing shortages through the legally required “concurso público” (open competition) so as to provide legal counsel to adolescents in every judicial district in the state of Rio de Janeiro and at every step of the judicial process following apprehension.

Gov. Rosângela Rosinha Garotinho Barros Assed Matheus de Oliveira should issue a decree to make the DEGASE Inspector General’s Office an autonomous entity that reports directly to the State Secretariat for Childhood and Youth, with full access to juvenile detention centers and all other investigatory and enforcement powers necessary to carry out its mandate.

CONANDA should include in its draft bill on socio-educational measures an explicit mandate for independent monitoring of the juvenile detention system by members of civil society.

For its part, the Brazilian Congress should condition the receipt of federal funding for juvenile justice programs on state guarantees of independent monitoring of juvenile detention centers.