Drugs, booze and violence

of 31 prisons equipped with gear used by security teams during the Rio Olympics the year before.

They seized 10,882 weapons— or one weapon for nearly every two inmates.

“Half of the prison population is armed,” said Defense Minister Raul Jungmann.

“This is an incomprehensible and absurd situation that maximizes the chance of massacres and violence.”

Also seized: nearly 2,000 cell phones and piles of narcotics.

(In)security

The 2017 prison riot death toll of more than 100 inmates was largely due to an ongoing war between two powerful rival drug gangs, one based in Sao Paulo and the other based in Rio.

Fearing another bloody year, authorities cracked down hard after the nine inmates were killed in Goias on January 1.

During that episode, 243 inmates escaped. The president of Brazil’s Supreme Court, Carmen Lucia, was forced to cancel her visit to the penitentiary because her safety could not be guaranteed.

Problems with Brazil’s jails go far beyond the prison walls, said

“Nothing indicates that the an expert on violence at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, an inter-governmental institute. “There will be new riots and killings.” He emphasized that the security crisis “is not exclusive to the prisons.”

There were nearly 61,620 homicides in Brazil in 2016, according to the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, an increase from 2015.

“The state has no answers, has no policies to contain this vio

No will for prison reform

After a string of bloody riots in 2017, President Michel Temer announced that new prisons would be built in which hardened inmates will be separated from petty criminals. Currently, the two groups are mixed. The new prisons will be equipped with gear to block cell phone signals, he said.

Experts also propose changes in the sentencing phase.

Judges believe that the solution to crime is to lock people up, Fuchs said.

“They should be more creative—use ankle bracelets, open prisons, and reduce provisional detentions,” he said.

“Let’s be honest: this is not a popular issue. No governor who says he will improve the penal system is going to win votes.”