Brazil: A waste of lives: FEBEM juvenile detention centres in Sao Paulo: A human rights crisis, not a public security issue

Brazil: A waste of lives: FEBEM juvenile detention centres in Sao Paulo: A human rights crisis, not a public security issue

Index Number: AMR 19/014/2000
Date Published: 11 July 2000
Categories: Brazil, Americas

This report documents the events that lead to a riot in one of Sao Paulo's juvenile detention centres that resulted in the death of four inmates. It examines the ongoing crisis in these centres and the failure of FEBEM and the Sao Paulo government to pre-empt the crisis. It deals with the two main juvenile detention complexes in São Paulo's capital, Imigrantes and Tatuapé, in which the crisis began, and with the prisons and new units into which the adolescents have been transferred since October 1999.