Brazil is organised as a Federal country. Each of the 27 federal units has its own prison system, independent of the federal prison system. Most facilities are managed by the public authorities, yet others are under private or mixed management (public-private partnership).
The Brazilian prison population is the third largest in the world. It is distributed unequally from one State to another. For instance, the State of São Paulo has about 30% of the national prison population. The lack of respect for fundamentals rights and poor imprisonment conditions are observed throughout the country.
The Minimum Rules of the Treatment of Prisoners in Brazil from 1994 (Regras mínimas para o tratamento de presos no Brasil ) require that medical assistance must be provided by the prison administration within the facilities. In April 2020, official data showed a ratio of 1 doctor and 1.83 nurses per 1,000 prisoners.

Overall, the Brazilian prison system is marked by systematic overcrowding and poor detention conditions. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many prisoners and family members have denounced the lack of access to healthcare. In April 2020, the prison administration confirmed that the prison facilities lack doctors.
The Federal government tried to implement the use of containers to temporarily isolate vulnerable prisoners. This idea was strongly criticised by local NGOs, the United Nations (UN) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). They stated that the containers were not adequately ventilated, and that this equipment would expose prisoners to high temperatures and violated the principle of human dignity. In May 2020, the National Council on Criminal and Penal Matters (CNPCP) refused to use containers. Instead, it authorised the construction of “exceptional areas”, without detailing any architectural criteria. This represented a risk of construction of precarious and unsanitary structures within prison premises.

In May 2020, the director of the Prison Staff Union of Sao Paulo regretted that the policy of downplaying the pandemic was supported by several prison staff members. Some refused to use protective equipment, despite the fact that prison staff was an important vector of contagion within prisons.

The denial was further aggravated by the Brazilian President, who watered down the law on the use of masks in public places, suppressing an article making it mandatory in prisons. In August 2020, this decision was overturned by the Supreme Court.
The management of healthcare within the penitentiary facilities remained rather opaque throughout the sanitary crisis. To this day, it is still difficult to know the extent to which health measures are effectively implemented. In the State of Amazonas, civil society organisations denounced the lack of transparency concerning medical care in prison. They claimed that the prison administration had not communicated their testing protocol. Several testimonials denounced the poor and unsanitary living conditions, as well as the lack of testing, medical care, personal hygiene products and disinfectants.
Transfers between facilities were maintained and testimonies reported that prisoners were transferred without any sanitary protocol.

The first COVID-19 cases were reported in March 2020 and the number of infections increased significantly throughout the pandemic.
Between May and June 2020, the CNJ reported an increase of 800% in COVID-19 cases amongst prisoners (from 245 to 2,212). A sharp rise was also observed amongst prison staff. In June, the infection reached 4,256 cases and 58 deaths amongst prisoners and prison staff. Most of the cases identified were in the Central-Western (29.5%), South-East (28.8%) and North-East (23.3%) regions of the country. The number of cases continued to increase significantly between July and November 2020.
By December, the country had 40,479 cases and 126 deaths amongst prisoners. The coronavirus has also particularly affected prison staff. A total of 12,458 staff members were infected and 90 died in October.

Several entities have made recommendations or asked the authorities to implement early releases. In the beginning of the pandemic, the CNJ recommended that the judicial authorities reduce the prison population. In April 2020, the prison administration estimated that around 30,000 prisoners were released or obtained a sentence adjustment, based on the CNJ’s instructions. Some were placed under electronic surveillance.
In March 2020, the Public Defender Congregation (Condege) filed an urgent petition for a Presidential pardon decree. The Brazilian president has however regularly spoken out against measures to release prisoners despite the sanitary crisis. The prison administration has been following his position.
The granting of early releases was done most of the time at the initiative of the State authorities on a case-by-case basis. They varied therefore from one State to another. In May 2020, the State of São Paulo released 3,190 people, among which 72% were awaiting trial. By June 2020, the judicial authorities had approved 3% of the release requests. In this State, the number of prisoners decreased from 234,000 in May 2019 to 216,000 in September 2020. Experts explained that the COVID-19 related releases and the decreasing of the number of arrests are amongst the main reasons of this change.
In May 2020, the Institute for Defence of the Right to Defence (Instituto de Defesa do Direito de Defesa, IDDD) stated that the number of releases was “derisory”. Its director recalled that at least 25,000 prisoners from São Paulo were considered at-risk.

In general, all States suspended most of the educational activities and day releases for working outside. Some prisons, in the State of Maranhão for instance, implemented e-learning tools. Several prisons adapted and maintained a few workshops dedicated to the production of masks or cleaning products. At the end of March 2020, the daily production of masks by prisoners at São Paulo was estimated at 26,000 items. This equipment was not primarily intended for use in prison or by prisoners. Women held in Anísio Jobim prison (Manaus) produced around 10,000 protective masks per day for prison staff and public security agents. Because of the suspension of most daily activities, prisoners spent more time locked up and were allowed one to two hours of outdoor exercise (banho de sol).

Family members¶

Each State or city decided on their own measures regarding the visits. The vast majority decided to suspend visits and activities. A few compensatory measures (videocall, email) were implemented, but they were extremely limited: not widespread enough and often dysfunctional. In the state of Maranhão, 42 out of 52 prisons were provided with the necessary equipment for hosting online visits by September 2020. Relatives declared that the videocalls brought them relief, but they complained that the time allocated was too short. They said that they were given only five minutes and there were problems with the connection. They also reported that the videocalls took place in a very controlled environment.
In March 2020, many facilities suspended the possibility for families to bring parcels (called jumbos) with goods, hygiene products and food to their loved ones. In the State of São Paulo, the packages could be sent by mail. Families and relatives of prisoners published an open letter to the authorities reporting the failures observed this new system and the high cost involved. Some families also had to face strikes from the postal company. Family members highlighted that prisoners relied on the parcels to fulfil their basic needs. In several States, the restrictions on visitation rules made it difficult for external parties, such as family members and legal representatives, to monitor prison conditions. Relatives reported they had problems contacting their loved ones in prison and obtaining information on their health status. They had to rely on rumours from medical and prison staff to obtain news. Due to the lack of communication about transfers, families did not always know where their incarcerated relative was being held. Many groups of relatives and families of prisoners from different States organised protests and called for transparency about the situation inside the prisons.
Visits resumed progressively in some States between September and November 2020. Each State had its own protocol, but in general the number of visitors remained limited, the wearing of masks was compulsory and physical contact was prohibited. By the end of November 2020, the State of Minas Gerais suspended visits in some facilities due to an increase in positive cases.

Inspection visits¶

In the first months of the pandemic, inspection visits from monitoring bodies were suspended. Despite the restrictions, the local members of the Brazilian NPM were proactive in arranging regular meetings with the public authorities to follow, at a distance, the evolution of the crisis in prisons.
Several appeals reported an increase of ill-treatment and torture during this period. In the end of August 2020, about 200 women and families of prisoners protested on the streets of Maceió (State of Alagoas) and denounced the torture in prisons. They claimed that prisoners were “forced to drink their own urine, were not allowed any outdoor time and were not provided with any food”. Released persons from Professor Jacy de Assis prison (State of Minas Gerais) reported that since the suspension of visits, acts of physical and psychological torture had intensified.

Numerous acts of protest have taken place in the country’s prisons between March and October 2020. They mainly denounced the lack of sanitary measures, the increase of ill-treatments and torture and the suspension of visits. Many protests involved mutinies and hostage-taking. Prison staff also protested during the pandemic, denouncing the lack of personnel and insufficient mass testing.
In May 2020, the prison administration obtained 19 million reais (more than 3 million dollars) of extra funding to buy “non-lethal” equipment (including grenades, ammunitions and pepper spray) in order to “supply units with uprising prevention equipment, following the suspension of visits”. The initiative Infovírus criticised the action of the prison administration. It regretted the allocation of resources to repression, instead of efforts on providing a list of at-risk prisoners and on implementing widespread testing.

The majority of calls from civil society organisations, prisoners’ relatives, professionals or judicial authorities were related to the lack of efficient measures to prevent the spread of the virus in prisons. The calls denounced numerous human rights violations and the increase of torture and ill-treatment in detention.
In June 2020, over 200 national bodies alerted the UN and the Organisation of American States (OAS) on the failure of the administration to control the spread of COVID-19 in Brazilian prisons. The document presented data and evidence of violations of standards and international recommendations in access to care, sentence adjustments, communication, registration of deaths, response to riots, and the use of inadequate temporary accommodation facilities. The joint appeal showed that the COVID-19 outbreak had deepened the pre-existing problems in the already weak prison system. In August 2020, the IACHR argued that Brazil was not able to guarantee the physical integrity of prisoners and the access to health care under the current detention conditions. It called the Brazilian government to reduce the overcrowding and the promiscuity inside the facilities.