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VI. Conditions of Detention

They’ve committed crimes, okay.  There should be help in the first instance, not throwing them in prison, not keeping them without being able to call their family.  Somebody won’t straighten out in Padre Severino.  The problem of marijuana, he [my son] picked up this habit inside.  My son returned full of rage, of aggression, without any help.⁸⁶
—Neusa M., whose son was in detention in 2004, interviewed in Rio de Janeiro, May 12, 2005.

In December 2004, when Human Rights Watch released its last report on juvenile detention in Rio de Janeiro, DEGASE director general Sérgio Novo told the press that he was “indignant” at our findings, which he described as “an injustice.”  “They show a reality that is completely different from what we have today,” he declared to the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.⁸⁷  In fact, Human Rights Watch’s six-month review of Rio de Janeiro’s juvenile detention centers found that little has changed.  If anything, detention conditions have worsened in several important respects.

The Educandário Santo Expedito is a case in point.  It held 181 youths the week we visited in July 2003, 9 percent over its official capacity of 166.  When we returned in May 2005, it held 207 youths, 24 percent more than it was designed for.  On both occasions, we found that its true capacity was closer to 90—entire cellblocks destroyed in a November 2002 fire were not repaired until late 2004, and they are not currently used to house youths.  The only notable improvements were the fresh coats of paint on the doors leading into each cellblock, which are now yellow instead of a peeling, dingy blue, and on the basketball court.

Overcrowding is the rule at most other detention centers as well.  CAI-Baixada is at 179 percent of its capacity.  Padre Severino is at 175 percent of capacity.  Santos Dumont was not filled to capacity when we visited, but officials there told us that it periodically reaches 150 percent.  Only João Luiz Alves, the closest thing Rio de Janeiro has to an adequate detention center, consistently holds fewer youths than it is designed for.

Squalor continues to be the order of the day.  Cells are filthy, dark, and infested with vermin.  At times, youths wear a single change of clothing for a week at a time.  Youths do not always have access to soap and toothpaste, particularly in Padre Severino.  Shortages of mattresses and bedding are common, and extreme levels of overcrowding mean that youths must often share beds.  Unsurprisingly, scabies and other contagious diseases thrive in such conditions.

All of Rio de Janeiro’s detention centers are dilapidated and badly in need of repair, but we heard particular complaints about Santos Dumont, the girl’s detention center.  When we visited the center, a guard commented, “What’s bad here are the rooms.  Look.  Everything is wet, moldy.  Really they have to renovate everything here.”⁸⁸  André Hespanhol, a lawyer with the nongovernmental organization Projeto Legal, agreed with the guard’s assessment, saying of the rooms, “They’re horrible.  And it would take just a little bit to improve them.  About 20,000 reais [U.S.$8,300] would be sufficient to redo everything there.”⁸⁹

The quality and amount of food was a problem in most centers, with the strongest complaints coming from those in Santo Expedito.  “Here the food is very bad.  Spoiled meat.”  Marcos G. had recently found white bugs in his food, he told us.⁹⁰

Youths in every facility we visited told us that they were now attending classes, but that was not the case for much of 2005.  As described in the previous section, classes were suspended starting in January in CAI-Baixada, Padre Severino, and Santo Expedito due to an acute shortage of guards and other personnel.  Schooling resumed in Santo Expedito only one week before our visit, according to the public defender’s office.⁹¹

The staffing shortage has also meant a sharp reduction in recreation and other activities, meaning that youths now spend much of their time locked in their cells.  Marcos G. reported that when he was held in Padre Severino, “We only used the field once in a while. . . .  There we stayed locked up the whole time.  The place was stinking like hell.  There was nothing to do.”⁹²  The same is true in CAI-Baixada, according to a suit brought by the public defender’s office in March 2005 over conditions in that center.⁹³

Juvenile detention is intended to serve a rehabilitative purpose.  In Rio de Janeiro, it fails not only to achieve that end but also to provide basic conditions of dignity and humanity.  “These boys deserve punishment because they made mistakes,” said Silvia R., the mother of a seventeen-year-old held in Padre Severino until May 2005.  “But they shouldn’t be treated like animals.”⁹⁴

Overcrowding

Overcrowding is particularly serious in CAI-Baixada, Padre Severino, and Santo Expedito, as the chart below show.  CAI-Baixada and Padre Severino each held in excess of 175 percent of their rated capacity during the week of May 16, 2005, DEGASE reported.  Santo Expedito was at 124 percent of its official capacity that week.⁹⁵

The situation is even more serious in Santo Expedito than it appears from these data.  Its official capacity of 166 does not reflect the fact that many of its cellblocks have been converted to other uses.  In our December 2004 report, we noted that several buildings had been largely destroyed in a November 2002 fire; these buildings had not been repaired when we visited in July 2003.  When we returned to the center in May 2005, we expected to find that these areas had been renovated, easing the pressure on the other cellblocks.  We found that the buildings had been repaired but are now used as a recycling center, meaning that all youths continue to be crowded into cellblocks in a single building.  Based on our discussions with detention center staff and our inspection of the facility, we estimate the true capacity of Santo Expedito to be 90 rather than 166.  With 207 youths in detention on the day of our visit, it held 230 percent of its estimated true capacity.

Overcrowding in Santo Expedito is such that youths must often share beds or sleep on the floor.  Anderson F., a seventeen-year-old in Santo Expedito, explained, “Some stay on the ground, others on top [on the bed].  There one sleeps with his head one way and the other with his head the other way” so that they can fit on the bed.⁹⁶ 

Santos Dumont held thirty-three girls when we visited in May 2005, seven under its official capacity of forty.  Nevertheless, it is periodically overcrowded.  One guard told us, “Now it’s okay because we have, what, twenty here, so we have a bed for everybody.  It’s tough when there are fifty or sixty.  Then we have to put two in a bed or even some on the floor.”⁹⁷

Living Conditions

Rio de Janeiro’s detention centers fail to meet basic standards of health and hygiene.  Detention centers report shortages of soap and toiletries; in some, youths wear a single change of clothing for up to a week before it is washed.

The youths we interviewed were particularly critical of the unhygienic conditions in Padre Severino.  “The cells were all filthy” in Padre Severino, said André S., detained in Padre Severino in early 2004, when he was seventeen.⁹⁸  Asked if the showers were clean in Padre Severino, seventeen-year-old Marcos G. responded, “No way.  It was filth.  It stunk like hell.”⁹⁹  Reports of rats in Padre Severino were common among youths and parents we interviewed.  “There were rats and centipedes,” André S. told us.¹⁰⁰  “There were rats,” Marcos G. reported.  “At night we would see lots of them running around.”¹⁰¹

The public defender’s office described CAI-Baixada in similar terms in a lawsuit filed in March 2005:

The infrastructure is precarious.  The dormitories are dirty, fetid, and unhealthy, with leaks that have produced mold on the walls, making the place prone to respiratory illnesses and the dissemination of other infections, aggravated by the fact that the adolescents do not receive enough clothes to change them daily, as well as not having adequate facilities for their physiological needs and for daily bathing.¹⁰²

In addition, youths in Padre Severino and other facilities often do not have bedding and mattresses; when they do, they are often old and worn.  João T., seventeen, compared conditions at Padre Severino with those at João Luiz Alves.  “There [in Padre Severino] . . . the mattresses were old.  The foam was all worn down.  Not like here [in João Luiz Alves].  Here they’re good.  There you ended up with your back hurting.”¹⁰³  André S. told us that he didn’t have a mattress during the forty-five days he spent in Padre Severino in early 2004.¹⁰⁴  The public defender’s office has complained of a shortage of mattresses and bedding in CAI-Baixada, João Luiz Alves, and Santos Dumont as well.¹⁰⁵

Those detained in Padre Severino told us that they did not regularly receive items such as toothpaste and soap.  Marcos G. depended on his mother to bring him soap and toothpaste when he was in Padre Severino.  “My mother brought it, but once they told her that toothpaste couldn’t come in,” he recounted.¹⁰⁶  André S. told us that getting toothpaste there “was difficult.  We got it every once in a while, like that, on our fingers.”¹⁰⁷  Silvia R. brought her son soap when he was in Padre Severino, but she said that the guards also issued soap to the youths periodically.¹⁰⁸

The situation in CAI-Baixada is similar, according to a suit filed by the public defender’s office in March 2005.  Among other shortcomings, the suit charged that youths in CAI-Baixada “do not have the use of necessary items for personal cleanliness (soap, a place to bathe, towel, toothpaste, toothbrush, etc.),” lacked clean clothing, did not receive needed medications, and did not all have mattresses and bedding.¹⁰⁹  In fact, the director of CAI-Baixada wrote to DEGASE’s central office in February 2005 saying, “We face difficulties in obtaining supplies of all kinds for the adolescents’ personal hygiene.”¹¹⁰

Clothing is changed once a week in Padre Severino and other detention centers.  Silvia R. described what this meant in the close quarters of a detention center:

Their clothing takes on a revolting smell.  They stay in those clothes.  They sweat.  They stay in dirty rooms, a lot of them in each room.  They start to reek.  So the guards call them, “You stinking bunch, you filth.”¹¹¹

Some youths in CAI-Baixada go barefoot because the center does not have shoes or sandals for them, the public defender’s office reported, characterizing this situation as “not rare.”¹¹²  And when some of the parents we interviewed tried to bring their children clothing and other items, their children did not always receive  what they brought.  “They didn’t give him his clothes.  They didn’t give him many things we brought,” said Gerson J., the father of an eighteen-year-old held in Santo Expedito until February 2005.¹¹³

As one consequence of the lack of hygienic conditions in Padre Severino and other detention centers, we heard reports of skin conditions likely caused by scabies and other parasitic diseases, which the public defender’s office describes as “constantly” present in Rio de Janeiro’s detention centers.¹¹⁴  “Many get itchy sores,” Silvia R. told us.  “They stay there in those dirty cells, wet too.”  She told us that she brought her son a special antibacterial soap so that he would not get the condition. ¹¹⁵  André S. gave a similar account.  When he was in Padre Severino, he said, “There were many people with itches.  They stayed separated from the rest. . . .  I still have marks here on my feet, some little black bumps that don’t go away.”¹¹⁶  Marcos G., in Santo Expedito when we interviewed him in May 2005, reported that his hands itched.  He pointed out tiny bumps on one hand.  “Many people have them,” he said.  He told us that he had not received treatment for the condition.¹¹⁷

Trash, standing water, and weeds covered a basketball court in Santo Expedito when Human Rights Watch inspected the center in July 2003.
(c) 2003 Stephen Hanmer/Human Rights Watch.

In May 2005, Santo Expedito’s basketball court showed some improvements:  The backstop had been replaced and the concrete painted.  Trash still littered the edge of the court.
(c) 2005 Michael Bochenek/Human Rights Watch.