Brazil: Prison Crisis Spurs Rights Reform

(São Paulo, April 8, 2015) – A pilot program in northeastern Brazil is reducing the number of people sent to pretrial detention, a major factor in prison overcrowding and gang recruitment, Human Rights Watch said today. The program in Maranhão state promptly brings detainees before judges for “custody hearings” to determine whether they should be held in pretrial detention or released on bail.
The prompt hearings are required under international law but are rarely provided in Brazil, where many prisoners wait months to see a judge. In nearly 50 percent of cases in the pilot program in the state with the worst prison violence in recent years, presiding judges found that pretrial detention was not warranted and ordered the detainee’s release. In cases in which judges made custody determinations based only on police reports, judges ordered detainees released in 10 percent of the cases, although international law requires a legal presumption in favor of release.