Brazil: an obstacle course for prisoners' families in the pandemic

Maria Teresa. Social and conjugal visits for prisoners were suspended for 30 days in March 2020. In April, the suspension was extended for another 30 days, but family members were allowed to send hygiene products via Sedex (Brazilian fast mail service). In May, some prisons started to allow people to send via Sedex items that used to be delivered in the basic goods ‘kit’. We have noticed that most prisons have been returning the packages sent by family members: for example, when the prisoner has been transferred, but the family was not informed… Sometimes, no reason is given for the return. Often, the heads of units do not care about the situation inside the prison. Despite several complaints and official letters, no action it was taken.

Visits were suspended to prevent Covid hitting the facilities, but it did anyway. Every 30 days, the suspension of visits is extended, as agreed in meetings between the prison Governor, the public security secretary, the head of Public Defender’s Office, the state Attorney General and the president of the state Court of Appeals.

No family members join these meetings and no physicians participate in the Covid committee.

After many complaints the DEPEN (national prison administration) started to organise on-line visits.

Some penitentiary facilities now allow prisoners to make video calls, but we maintain that on-line communication is not a real visit. Prisoners have no privacy to talk to family members: there is a technical inspector next to each prisoner, and two prison officers behind them. If the agent disagrees with anything said by the prisoner, the call is dropped and there is no call back.

Some family members have heard prisoners really crying during the calls. They say they are fine, but we can tell from their voices that they are not, we can tell that they’re not OK. A few family members have seen prisoners with a black eye due to physical aggression in the prison. There is nothing we can do for them on a video call.

During this period of pandemic, letters sent by families to prisoners and from them to their families are not being delivered. A few family members have recently received letters from March or April [six months late]. Those letters were stuck in the prison facilities. The people in charge are ignoring all this. We also think that many letters are censored and not sent to families, because prisoners probably mention physical and psychological tortures, lack of food, water and healthcare within the prison system.

While the World Health Organization, in the midst of the pandemic, recommended isolation and social distancing, prisoners here were being transferred between cities every week, worsening the situation. These transfers have been spreading Covid between facilities: an infected prisoner is sent to another prison, where he infects other prisoners. They do not even respect the national prison law (lei de execução penal), which is clear: the prisoner shall serve a prison sentence close to the family so that he can be assisted by family members. Prisoners have been transferred to cities very far from their relatives, to municipalities where they have no family ties.

MTdS. We have been receiving information about persons deprived of liberty in three ways: the first one is through the lawyers, when they manage to enter the penitentiary facility to meet their clients. When the prisoner is seen by his lawyer in the meeting room, he can tell the lawyer what is happening within the facility, and sometimes he can even send a message from another prisoner to his family. But in the facilities where lawyers are not allowed in, the communication between them and the prisoners is on-line. In such cases the prisoner has no privacy to talk to his lawyer, so it’s harder for families to get information. On-line calls mean prisoners cannot communicate freely with their defence lawyer.

A second way to get information is from prisoners who are released. They record audio messages to show us what is happening inside the prison.

Another source of information is prison officers who disapprove of the atrocities that have been happening within the system. Sometimes they tell us what’s happening inside the facility.

MTdS. We, the families of prisoners, want the right to visit them, in line with a protocol that follows the World Health Organisation guidelines. There is no justification for such suspension, because there is no lockdown in the city: bars, stores, shopping malls are all open. The suspension of visits led to disorder, met by extreme aggression against prisoners by agents of the rapid intervention unit brought in to restore order. Visits need to be allowed again. Only when families visit prisoners do they learn what’s happening inside the prison. Access must also be restored for community councils, the public prosecutor’s office, commissions in charge of prison matters, and human rights commissions of the Brazilian Bar Association in order to perform inspections, and to report on rights abuses taking place. We insist on this, because once the community and civil society goes inside prisons, prisoners suffer less physical aggression from those meant to take care of them.

We are living in crazy times. Some prison governors, in the midst of a pandemic, are insisting that the small windows in cells remain closed, so that the prisoner cannot have any contact with the outside. When those windows are open, prisoners can be heard by their families when they scream from their cells, as happened in the prison in Itaba.

We are living a time of cruelty in the way the Brazilian prison system is being run. Once families know their relatives are the victims of atrocities, they have trouble eating and sleeping, they’re so anxious.

I have been seeing mothers who are completely desperate with the lack of information about their sons. For us women, having a son in prison is a pain that nobody can understand. Society is not responsible for the unlawful acts our children committed. s But we are still mothers, and we will never abandon our children. The lack of communication has been causing a lot of anxiety and illness amongst women.

The state Court of Appeal has remained silent and passive in the face of this situation. Prosecutors and judges are very efficient at requesting the conviction of the young men who don’t abide by the law. But they are not brave enough to demand that the public security secretary and the head of the penitentiary department enforce national prison law. If the law exists, the judiciary should enforce it and monitor its compliance. They are strict about prisoners’ obligations, but their rights are totally ignored.

We have a judiciary that is more focused on convicting black people living in the margins of society. Our prosecutors and criminal court judges aren’t familiar with the prison facilities they are sending people to. Every prosecutor and every judge should do an internship in a prison so they know what they are doing to the young people sent there. They are places of suffering and pain. Prisons were not created for that