SNAPSHOT OF PRISON CHAOS IN SAO PAULO STATE

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.

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LIKE SARDINES IN A CAN
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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.

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NOT EXACTLY "EXTREME MAKEOVER"
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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.

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PATHETIC, BUT NO PLACE TO GO
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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.

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SOME RELIEF SOON, BUT ONLY A DROP IN THE BUCKET
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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