Prison Contact

3 guys from ‘Caverna’ came round to the Rescue House the other day to share a little information about their involvement working in the local prisons.

It turns out that there are 2 different types of prison in Brazil: the Delegacia (Remand Prison, used while prisoners await sentencing) and the Penitenciario (where prisoners serve their sentence).

They have worked in one of the local Delegacias and described the conditions that they found there. Imagine this:

Take a room 12 feet by 18 (4 by 6 metres) – perhaps the size of your sitting room or bedroom, if you’re lucky. Take out the corridor space along one side. Now divide the remaining space into 3 cells. Now, get this... you share one of those cells with 19 other people. The good news is that you are not cooped up in that space all week – you get half-an-hour’s exercise a week and, if you have a visit then you get an hour for that but if you don’t use it you lose it. Bathroom facilities are a whole in the floor for ablutions and a soda bottle of water for your shower.

Now, this is the Delegacia and so the law says that you can not stay in this prison for more than one month. However, it is not uncommon for people to stay in these cells for longer: 3, 4, 5 or even 10… YEARS.

They were not sure what the conditions are like in the minors’ prisons but we can not imagine that they will be much different. We are keen to start visiting a prison some time soon and it would appear that Edevaldo (the leader of the Rescue House) is also keen.