Brazil's Supreme Court rules that the practice of humiliating searches in prisons is illegal.
Inspections must be justified based on suspicions or complaints.
André Richter - Reporter for Agência Brasil
By unanimous decision, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) ruled this Wednesday (2) that the practice of humiliating strip searches in the country's prisons is illegal. The measure is used by the prison administration to prevent the entry of drugs, weapons and cell phones.
With this decision, the Court now understands that the inspection of body cavities and the stripping of friends and relatives of prisoners without justification is "inadmissible".
Therefore, drugs and illegal objects found on visitors' bodies cannot be used as evidence to incriminate them if they were obtained from the humiliating search.
Despite the prohibition, the Court understood that prison administrations can deny entry to visitors who refuse to undergo any type of search. However, the inspection must be justified based on suspicions of carrying illegal objects, anonymous reports, and intelligence information.
The Supreme Court also set a 24-month deadline for prisons across the country to purchase body scanners, X-ray machines, and metal detector portals. Resources from the National Penitentiary Fund and the National Public Security Fund will be used by the federal government and the states to purchase the equipment.
Case
The Court upheld an appeal by the Public Prosecutor's Office to overturn the acquittal of a woman caught trying to enter a prison in Porto Alegre with 96 grams of marijuana, which were wrapped in a condom and concealed in her vagina.
In the first instance, she was convicted, but the Public Defender's Office appealed to the Court of Justice of Rio Grande do Sul (TJRS), which acquitted her, understanding that the intimate search procedure was illegal.
The case had been pending before the Supreme Federal Court since 2016 and had already been the subject of... successive interruptions due to requests for review over the years.