Riot police set up base in Piauí prisons.
The government of Piauí, through the Secretary of Justice and the General Command of the Military Police, authorized the deployment of the Military Police's Shock Troops to the Teresina Detention Center; the initiative aims to guarantee, preventively, security and order in the unit; the Secretary of Justice also installed a base for the Prison Intervention Group at the Irmão Guido Regional Penitentiary; at the Detention Center, the Shock Troops have a force of 19 military police officers; the Intervention Group, at Guido, has the support of 12 prison officers.
Piauí 247 - The government of the State of Piauí, through the Department of Justice and the General Command of the Military Police, authorized the deployment of the Military Police Shock Troops to the Teresina Detention Center. The initiative aims to guarantee, preventively, security and order in the unit. The Department of Justice also established a base for the Prison Intervention Group at the Irmão Guido Regional Penitentiary. At the Detention Center, the Shock Troops have a force of 19 military police officers. The Intervention Group at Guido has the support of 12 prison officers.
According to the Secretary of Justice of Piauí, Daniel Oliveira, the measure is within the prison security protocol adopted by the State Government to prevent disturbances in the two largest prison units in Greater Teresina. “We have been working fundamentally with preventive actions, in order to strategically avoid and eliminate any possibility of disturbances in these two units. In this way, by guaranteeing order in the units, we guarantee the safety of the population,” he points out.
According to the secretary, the other prisons in Piauí are also being reinforced in terms of security and intelligence. "We have established reinforcements for all units, intensifying the security protocol procedures," he emphasizes.
Prison system in crisis
The deployment of the Shock Troops comes in a context of extreme crisis in the Brazilian prison system. The deficiencies have once again gained prominence in the national press after the death in the rebellion in Manaus, on the 2nd - the rebellion began the day before - and in Roraima (33) on the 7th.
On Saturday (14), 26 inmates died at the Alcaçuz State Penitentiary, in the metropolitan region of Natal, after the start of a rebellion that ended on Sunday (15). Just one day later, on Monday (16), the prison registered a new riot and inmates were seen occupying the roof of the prison (see here).
Also on Sunday (15), two inmates died and 28 escaped from the Piraquara Penitentiary Complex, in the metropolitan region of Curitiba. In Pernambuco, the government is investigating how four prisoners escaped from a maximum security penitentiary in Tacaimbó, in the Pernambuco hinterland. All of them were recaptured.
On the 12th, two men were killed at the Tupi Paulista Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison in the interior of São Paulo state. One of them was beheaded, according to information from the Dracena Police Station. On the same day, two inmates detained at the Custody House, known as "Cadeião," in Maceió, were also killed. The bodies showed multiple stab wounds.
On the 4th of this month, two prisoners were killed at the Romero Nóbrega Standard Penitentiary in Patos, Sertão da Paraíba.
International NGO criticizes Brazil
On the 12th of this month, a 2017 World Report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which analyzes human rights practices in more than 90 countries, drew attention to killings committed by police officers (extrajudicial executions), overcrowded prisons, and mistreatment, including torture, of prisoners in Brazil.
In the 687-page document, the NGO cites improvements in the country in the field of human rights, such as the expansion of custody hearings, which speed up judicial decisions for those arrested in the act, but it also makes many criticisms of the management of public security and the prison system, among other things.
The report highlights the 85% increase in the prison population from 2004 to 2014, reaching more than 622.200 people, a 67% overcapacity in the prison system, and a shortage of prison officers. The deaths of 99 prisoners in prisons in the states of Amazonas, Roraima, and Paraíba this month were also included in the document.
The rebellion that resulted in the deaths of nearly 60 inmates in Manaus, for example, was the second largest massacre in the Brazilian prison system, caused by a fight between criminal factions. The first occurred in 1992 at the São Paulo Detention Center, where 111 inmates were killed after a rebellion began and a subsequent confrontation with the Military Police.