HomeNewsBriefThousands of Brazilian Prisoners Escape After Xmas Leave
BRIEF

Thousands of Brazilian Prisoners Escape After Xmas Leave

BRAZIL / 23 JAN 2013 BY JAMES BARGENT EN

Over 2,400 Brazilian prisoners escaped after being given leave to return home over the Christmas and New Year's Eve period, in another indictment of Brazil’s malfunctioning penal system.

In total, 47,531 prisoners were granted a temporary release over the holidays, 5.1 percent of whom -- 2,416 -- did not return. In 2011, almost exactly the same proportionabsconded, reported G1.

The temporary releases are granted as a reward for good behavior for prisoners housed in semi-open prisons who have served at least one sixth of their sentence, for first-time offenders, or a quarter, for repeat offenders.

Prisoners are able to claim up to five releases a year to spend time with their family, usually for Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Children Day, Christmas and one other day of their choice.

In the state with the highest desertion rate, Sergipe, 21 percent of prisoners who were given leave absconded. The director of the Sergipe penal system, Manuel Lucio Torres, told G1 that some prisoners plan their escape by behaving well to secure the temporary release. Torres called for cases to be evaluated individually to determine if each prisoner is a flight risk, regardless of their behaviour.

InSight Crime Analysis

Brazil has the third largest prison population in the world, with over half a million inmates, and its penal system has become notorious for overcrowding, and criminal activity.

The country’s prisons are also the birthplace of some of Brazil’s most infamous gangs including the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command (Comando Vermelho) and many criminal enterprises are still at least partially run from the inside.

As the festive period escapees were housed in low security prisons, it is unlikely many of them belonged to such feared criminal organizations. However there have been cases of inmates offending while on temporary release, and the sheer number of escapees suggests a serious issue. This could be curbed by the increased use of electronic tagging devices -- a nascent technology in the Brazilian penal system.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BRAZIL / 26 MAY 2023

The PCC appears to be providing support to illegal miners in the Yanomami territory in Brazil's northern state of Roraima.

BARRIO 18 / 4 AUG 2023

Military crackdowns and mass trials show that there's no end in sight in El Salvador's anti-gang state of exception.

BRAZIL / 28 JUN 2022

Prosecutors, mayors, prison directors, relatives of officials - are assassinations here to stay in Paraguay?…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…