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### Viewing cable 06SAOPAULO751, SNAPSHOT OF PRISON CHAOS IN SAO PAULO STATE

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
06SAOPAULO751 | 2006-07-10 17:58 | 2011-07-11 00:00 | UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY | Consulate Sao Paulo

`

    VZCZCXRO4534
    PP RUEHRG
    DE RUEHSO #0751/01 1911758
    ZNR UUUUU ZZH
    P 101758Z JUL 06
    FM AMCONSUL SAO PAULO
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5382
    INFO RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA 6468
    RUEHRG/AMCONSUL RECIFE 3029
    RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO 7251
    RUEHAC/AMEMBASSY ASUNCION 2670
    RUEHBU/AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES 2343
    RUEHMN/AMEMBASSY MONTEVIDEO 2068
    RUEHLP/AMEMBASSY LA PAZ 2905
    RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO 1796
    RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
    RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
    RUMIAAA/USCINCSO MIAMI FL
    RUEAWJC/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
    RUEABND/DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMIN HQ WASHDC

` `

    UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 SAO PAULO 000751

    SIPDIS

    DEPARTMENT FOR DS/IP/WHA, DS/ICI/PII, DS/DSS/OSAC, WHA/BSC
    NSC FOR FEARS
    DEA FOR OEL/DESANTIS AND NIRL/LEHRER
    DEPT ALSO FOR WHA/PDA, DRL/PHD, INL, DS/IP/WHA, DS/DSS/ITA
    BRASILIA FOR RSO AND LEGAT; RIO DE JANEIRO FOR RSO
    SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD

    SENSITIVE
    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: N/A
    TAGS: PGOV PHUM KCRM CASC SOCI SNAR ASEC BR
    SUBJECT: SNAPSHOT OF PRISON CHAOS IN SAO PAULO STATE

    REF: (A) SAO PAULO 526; (B) 05 SAO PAULO 975; (C) SAO PAULO 319

    SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY.

    ¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  For the past month, Sao Paulo prison officials
    have been housing over 1400 prisoners in an open yard designed to
    hold about 160 people in the Araraquara prison in northern Sao Paulo
    state.  No AmCits are currently housed in Araraquara, but one AmCit
    is being held in somewhat similar conditions at the Itirapina
    prison.  The current dire situation at Araraquara developed over the
    last six weeks, as authorities incrementally compressed the inmates
    into smaller and smaller available space after several inmate riots
    and a discovered tunnel left most of the prison facilities unusable.
     With chronic overcrowding and decimated facilities, the situation
    at Araraquara is emblematic of Sao Paulo's ailing prison system, and
    much of Brazil's, even as the federal government touts its new
    prison in Parana state - the first federal prison to open in Brazil
    - as a model penitentiary.  As part of our ongoing outreach
    strategy, we will host a group from ICITAP next month to evaluate
    possible USG technical assistance programs, and we are organizing a
    seminar on crime, justice and prison administration issues bringing
    together U.S. experts, local civil society representatives, and
    state security officials.  END SUMMARY.

    ----------------------
    LIKE SARDINES IN A CAN
    ----------------------

    ¶2.  (SBU)  Prison authorities at the Araraquara facility in northern
    Sao Paulo state near Riberao Preto have been housing more than 1,400
    inmates in a single, open-air yard designed to hold only about 160
    persons at any given time.  Officials say they were forced to lock
    the entire prison population into this yard after several riots that
    began during the PCC crime wave of mid-May (ref A) left the rest of
    the institution virtually in ruins.  No AmCits are currently
    incarcerated in Araraquara.

    ¶3.  (SBU)  This most recent Sao Paulo prison saga began on May 13,
    when prisoners took over a state-of-the-art temporary holding center
    (CDP) located just inside the main entrance to the Araraquara Prison
    in an uprising that lasted 28 hours.  The riot coincided with 70
    others that occurred in prisons throughout Sao Paulo state in
    conjunction with a wave of violence launched by the organized crime
    ring the First Capital Command (PCC), which is based in the Sao
    Paulo prisons and operates both inside and outside of prison walls
    (ref B).  The holding center, known as the Annex, was destroyed in
    the riot, and 600 prisoners were moved to the main prison area on
    May 15.

    ¶4.  (U)  Then another riot broke out a month later in the main
    prison, and inmates destroyed virtually all of the cell blocks,
    referred to as pavilions, in the facility.  As a result, the entire
    prison population of around 1,450 inmates was moved into the Annex
    on June 16.  The Annex has four equal-sized yards approximately 90
    feet square, surrounded by cells that open to the yards.  Each of
    these quadrants holds approximately 160 inmates, or about 650 total
    prisoners.  The prisoners were initially kept in a single yard of
    the Annex because of the destruction caused in May, but an adjoining
    yard was opened on June 23.

    ¶5.  (SBU)  But on July 3, twenty-five inmates were caught by police
    trying to escape through a tunnel originating in one the yards in
    the Annex.  Consequently, all 1450 inmates were again squeezed into
    a single quadrant, and all the doors to the yard were locked and
    welded shut.  The plight of these prisoners is now being widely
    covered in Sao Paulo press after the daily newspaper Folha de Sao
    Paulo reported on July 6 that food is simply tossed into the yard
    from the rooftop, and sick inmates are not being adequately treated.
     It is reported that inmates freed from incarceration by court order
    must be hoisted out by rope because guards will not re-open the
    sealed doors.  Aerial photos in several daily papers show a mass of
    almost naked prisoners crammed into the open yard under the blazing

    SAO PAULO 00000751  002 OF 004

    sun, with apparently sick and injured inmates lying prone in the
    center.

    ------------------------------
    NOT EXACTLY "EXTREME MAKEOVER"
    ------------------------------

    ¶6.  (SBU)  In a bit of real-life drama befitting a Brazilian soap
    opera, Hosmany Ramos, a former socialite plastic surgeon infamously
    imprisoned in Araraquara for murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking
    and robbery, has given newspaper and television interviews via cell
    phone regarding conditions in the Annex yard.  Ramos said he has
    been treating inmates almost around the clock because prison doctors
    refuse to enter the yard.  Medicine has been scarce, he said,
    especially HIV/AIDS cocktail treatments, which is of particular
    concern because HIV positive inmates have been housed in the yard
    alongside inmates suffering from tuberculosis and hepatitis.  Ramos
    said that two-thirds of the inmates have serious colds and show no
    signs of improving.  These conditions are exacerbated by the fact
    that inmates must sleep outdoors with no blankets, in many cases
    leaning on each other for support and warmth.  He said he even
    pulled a rotten tooth from an inmate using a nail and a shoe as a
    hammer.

    ¶7.  (SBU)  Reports indicate that there is no power to the yard, and
    with only a few working toilets, inmates are forced to relieve
    themselves in bags that are stacked in a corner.  Surprisingly, some
    prisoners who have managed to give interviews have said that fights
    do not break out within the yard and that the inmates are keeping
    the yard and themselves as clean as possible for fear of infection
    or an outbreak of a communicable illness.

    ----------------------------
    PATHETIC, BUT NO PLACE TO GO
    ----------------------------

    ¶8.  (SBU)  As promised by Sao Paulo Governor Claudio Lembo, 107 sick
    inmates were moved on Friday, July 7, from the common yard, but not
    very far; they were moved into an adjacent yard and treated there by
    a team of medical personnel.  Prison officials stated that none of
    the sick inmates suffered from conditions warranting
    hospitalization, so none would be removed from the Araraquara
    grounds.

    ¶9.  (SBU)  Governor Lembo, at first, sounded a rather unsympathetic
    tone regarding conditions at Araraquara, laying blame for the dire
    situation squarely on the backs of the prisoners themselves, whose
    riots and destructive behavior forced prison authorities to resort
    to locking the inmates in a single yard. But after a couple of days
    of vivid news reports, the Governor became more conciliatory,
    calling the situation "pathetic" and saying that it is only human to
    feel some shame for the plight of the prisoners.  He was quick to
    opine, as he did during the crime wave of May, that the entire Sao
    Paulo community must share in the responsibility for the shame.  The
    director of Araraquara also said the prisoners should not be moved
    because they will simply rebel and destroy facilities anew.  He said
    he had decided to keep the prisoners in the yard "not to be cruel,
    but disciplined."

    ¶10.  (SBU)  Regardless of prison policy, the Governor maintains that
    there will be no transfers from Araraquara in the near future,
    simply because there is no penal facility left in Sao Paulo that can
    handle any significant influx of prisoners.  The prisons of
    Itirapina and Mirandopolis, for example, also have more than 1000
    prisoners each being held in single pavilions designed to hold only
    hundreds of inmates.  (NOTE: One AmCit is being held at Itirapina.
    Prison officials told us on Monday, July 10, that there has been no
    uprising or unusually difficult conditions recently, and the AmCit
    prisoner was visited by a Conoff on May 30 at which time he made no
    complaints regarding prison conditions.  END NOTE).  And the
    Pracinha Prison is holding 1400 inmates, twice its designed
    capacity.  In fact, the current Sao Paulo State prison population

    SAO PAULO 00000751  003 OF 004

    hovers at around 125,650, in a system designed for 95,645, which
    means the system is about 23 percent over-capacity.  Added to that,
    at least 19 of 144 facilities were destroyed or suffered serious
    damage since the riots of May.  The new Secretary for Prison
    Administration, Antonio Ferreira Pitno, said last week that 12,000
    to 15,000 inmates are currently housed in "precarious conditions."
    It is estimated that the repairs to Araraquara alone will cost over
    USD 7 million.  Governor Lembo said that repairs to the main prison
    at Araraquara are scheduled to begin on Monday, July 10.

    --------------------------------------------- --
    SOME RELIEF SOON, BUT ONLY A DROP IN THE BUCKET
    --------------------------------------------- --

    ¶11.  (SBU)  State officials announced that Sao Paulo has requested
    to send forty inmates to the new Catanduvas federal prison in Parana
    state (ref C).  Catanduvas, which just became operational in June,
    is Brazil's first federal prison, and is being touted by federal
    officials as state-of-the-art.  Two-hundred video cameras will
    assist some 170 guards monitor 200 inmates.  Each wing of the prison
    boasts X-rays and other scanners that will be able to detect eight
    types of narcotics, ten types of explosives, nine types of chemical
    warfare agents, and eight types of industrial chemicals that might
    be used as an explosive, and the scanners are said to be able to
    detect these agents in particulates as small as vapor.

    ¶12.  (SBU)  Sao Paulo's Prison Secretary said that the majority of
    the 40 spots he requested in Catanduvas will be for PCC members, but
    he would not confirm whether the gang's top boss, known as Marcola,
    will be transferred.  Moving Marcola out of Sao Paulo will be a
    tough decision to make; it was the transfer of 750 PCC leaders,
    including Marcola, to high security facilities in rural Sao Paulo
    state that sparked the prison riots and crime wave in May (ref A).
    And such mayhem is not new to Brazilian prison authorities; on
    Christmas Day 2005, for example, some 200 hostages - mostly family
    members of inmates - were held for a week in the Urso Branco prison
    in Rondonia state after a gang leader had been moved to a more
    secure facility.  The stand-off ended when state officials relented
    and returned the leader to Urso Branco.  After the Sao Paulo
    uprisings in May, Marcola was deposed by a special investigative
    commission of the national Congress, during which he claimed that he
    negotiated with police for the resolution of the crime wave.  In a
    recent interview, the director of the Araruquara prison lamented
    "the prisoners treat Marcola as God.  They worship the guy."

    ¶13.  (SBU) COMMENT:  Prisons in Sao Paulo, and throughout Brazil,
    are notoriously overcrowded and poorly managed.  Corruption among
    prison employees is rampant (refs A and C), and major organized
    crime rings are actually based behind bars.  Added to that, periodic
    riots - ironically, sometimes sparked by prisoner calls for better
    conditions -- leave sections of prisons almost completely destroyed,
    creating even more pressure on an already simmering cauldron of
    crime and violence.  Even administrative decisions as basic as
    prisoner transfers often result in chaos and bloodshed both within
    the prison system and on the streets of Sao Paulo.  And the chaos is
    not limited to overcrowding; police recently found drugs in the
    highest security prison in Sao Paulo state, and they uncovered a
    plan to hide drugs and weapons within soccer balls that would be
    sent into prisons via official procurement channels.  The new
    federal prison may help, but with only 200 spaces, at best it will
    provide a release-valve for states to deal with their worst
    offenders, and then, only if authorities are able to get their
    prisoners to Catanduvas at all.

    ¶14.  (SBU) COMMENT CONTINUED.  As part of our ongoing outreach
    strategy, we have discussed with Sao Paulo State's Secretary of
    Public Security possible areas of technical assistance the USG might
    be able to offer regarding prison administration and anti-gang
    efforts.  To that end, a group from the U.S. Department of Justice's
    International Criminal Investigative Training Program (ICITAP),
    coordinated through the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law
    Enforcement Affairs (INL), will visit Sao Paulo at the beginning of

    SAO PAULO 00000751  004 OF 004

    August to evaluate the situation here.  Also, our Public Diplomacy
    section is organizing a two-day seminar with four U.S. experts and
    over 100 Brazilian civil society representatives and state security
    officials to share best practices on issues of crime, justice, and
    prison administration, among other security related topics.  Septels
    with details to follow.   END COMMENT.

    ¶15.  (U)  This cable was coordinated/cleared with Embassy Brasilia.

    MCMULLEN

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